The Lost Art Of Dress

A history of the women who taught Americans how to dress in the first half of the 20th century—and whose lessons we’d do well to remember today.

“Always be closing!” —Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992 “Never Be Closing!” —a sales book title, 2014 “?????” —salespeople everywhere, 2017 For decades, sales managers, coaches, and authors talked about closing as the most essential, most difficult phase of selling. They invented pushy tricks for the final ask, from the “take delivery” close to the “now or never” close. But these tactics often alienated customers, leading to fads for the “soft” close or even abandoning the idea of closing altogether. It sounded great in theory, but the results were often mixed or poor. That left a generation of salespeople wondering how they should think about closing, and what strategies would lead to the best possible outcomes. Anthony Iannarino has a different approach geared to the new technological and social realities of our time. In The Lost Art of Closing, he proves that the final commitment can actually be one of the easiest parts of the sales process—if you’ve set it up properly with other commitments that have to happen long before the close. The key is to lead customers through a series of necessary steps designed to prevent a purchase stall. Iannarino addressed this in a chapter of The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need—which he thought would be his only book about selling. But he discovered so much hunger for guidance about closing that he’s back with a new book full of proven tactics and useful examples. The Lost Art of Closing will help you win customer commitment at ten essential points along the purchase journey. For instance, you’ll discover how to: · Compete on value, not price, by securing a Commitment to Invest early in the process. · Ask for a Commitment to Build Consensus within the client’s organization, ensuring that your solution has early buy-in from all stakeholders. · Prevent the possibility of the sale falling through at the last minute by proactively securing a Commitment to Resolve Concerns. The Lost Art of Closing will forever change the way you think about closing, and your clients will appreciate your ability to help them achieve real change and real results.\

A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2020 Named a Best Book of 2020 by NPR “A fascinating scientific, cultural, spiritual and evolutionary history of the way humans breathe—and how we’ve all been doing it wrong for a long, long time.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic and Eat Pray Love No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young or wise you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. Journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. The answers aren’t found in pulmonology labs, as we might expect, but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again.

This latest title in the highly successful Ancient Textiles series is the first substantial monograph-length historiography of early medieval embroideries and their context within the British Isles. The book brings together and analyses for the first time all 43 embroideries believed to have been made in the British Isles and Ireland in the early medieval period. New research carried out on those embroideries that are accessible today, involving the collection of technical data, stitch analysis, observations of condition and wear-marks and microscopic photography supplements a survey of existing published and archival sources. The research has been used to write, for the first time, the ‘story’ of embroidery, including what we can learn of its producers, their techniques, and the material functions and metaphorical meanings of embroidery within early medieval Anglo-Saxon society. The author presents embroideries as evidence for the evolution of embroidery production in Anglo-Saxon society, from a community-based activity based on the extended family, to organized workshops in urban settings employing standardized skill levels and as evidence of changing material use: from small amounts of fibers produced locally for specific projects to large batches brought in from a distance and stored until needed. She demonstrate that embroideries were not simply used decoratively but to incorporate and enact different meanings within different parts of society: for example, the newly arrived Germanic settlers of the fifth century used embroidery to maintain links with their homelands and to create tribal ties and obligations. As such, the results inform discussion of embroidery contexts, use and deposition, and the significance of this form of material culture within society as well as an evaluation of the status of embroiderers within early medieval society. The results contribute significantly to our understanding of production systems in Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland.

The clothes worn by our ancestors afford an unparalleled insight into lifestyles that have disappeared forever.

How we walk, where we walk, why we walk tells the world who and what we are. Whether it's once a day to the car, or for long weekend hikes, or as competition, or as art, walking is a profoundly universal aspect of what makes us humans, social creatures, and engaged with the world. Cultural commentator, Whitbread Prize winner, and author of Sex Collectors Geoff Nicholson offers his fascinating, definitive, and personal ruminations on the literature, science, philosophy, art, and history of walking. Nicholson finds people who walk only at night, or naked, or in the shape of a cross or a circle, or for thousands of miles at a time, in costume, for causes, or for no reason whatsoever. He examines the history and traditions of walking and its role as inspiration to artists, musicians, and writers like Bob Dylan, Charles Dickens, and Buster Keaton. In The Lost Art of Walking, he brings curiosity, imagination, and genuine insight to a subject that often strides, shuffles, struts, or lopes right by us.

The Dress Detective is the first practical guide to analyzing fashion objects, clearly demonstrating how their close analysis can enhance and enrich interdisciplinary research. This accessible book provides readers with the tools to uncover the hidden stories in garments, setting out a carefully developed research methodology specific to dress, and providing easy-to-use checklists that guide the reader through the process. Beautifully illustrated, the book contains seven case studies of fashionable Western garments – ranging from an 1820s coat to a 2004 Kenzo jacket – that articulate the methodological framework for the process, illustrate the use of the checklists, and show how evidence from the garment itself can be used to corroborate theories of dress or fashion. This book outlines a skillset that has, until now, typically been passed on informally. Written in plain language, it will give any budding fashion historian, curator, or researcher the knowledge and confidence to analyze the material in front of them effectively.

Sensuality equals beauty—that’s what today’s young women are learning from our sex-obsessed society. Millions of 20somethings are caught up in trying to look like fashion models, movie stars, or the hottest new pop singer and end up plagued by insecurity, eating disorders, and sexual promiscuity. Bestselling author and speaker Leslie Ludy (Set-Apart Femininity and Authentic Beauty) shares a different vision for feminine loveliness as God intended it to be—the breathtaking radiance of a young woman who has been transformed by Christ from the inside out. With candid personal stories, practical advice, and inspiration, Leslie leads young women on a life-changing journey to become women of feminine grace, beauty, and enduring style. Leslie inspires girls toward inner changes but also talks about practical social grace and manners, how to dress beautifully, and even how to create a warm and lovely environment in the home. Clearly, true beauty is more than skin deep.