From the acclaimed author of Stuffed: an intimate, richly illustrated memoir, written with charm and panache, that juxtaposes two fascinating livesβthe iconoclastic designer Elsa Schiaparelli and the authorβs own motherβto explore how a girl fashions herself into a woman.
Audrey Morgen Volk, an upper-middle-class New Yorker, was a great beauty and the polished hostess at her familyβs garment district restaurant. Elsa SchiaparelliββSchiapββthe haute couture designer whose creations shocked the world, blurred the line between fashion and art, and believed that everything, even a button, has the potential to delight.
Audreyβs daughter Patricia read Schiapβs autobiography, Shocking Life, at a tender age, and was transformed by it. These two womenβvolatile, opinionated, and brilliant each in her own wayβoffered Patricia contrasting lessons about womanhood and personal style that allowed her to plot her own course.
Moving seamlessly between the Volksβ Manhattan and Florida milieux and Schiapβs life in Rome and Paris (among friends such as DalΓ, Duchamp, and Picasso), Shocked weaves Audreyβs traditional notions of domesticity with Schiaparelliβs often outrageous ideas into a marvel-filled, meditation on beauty, and on being a daughter, sister, and mother, while demonstrating how a single book can change a life
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