by Cross Woodfield

Ok so I’m starting this thing where I review books that I hope will inspire you guys.  I think you can never have enough inspiration, and you can never be too cultured. 

I’ll call it “Sweet Table Books,” like coffee table books, but sweeter, because we’re sweet-tooths through and through.

And besides, “coffee stunts your growth, and I wanna be 5’10” like Cindy Crawford.” (see Alicia Silverstone in Clueless.)

The first book I’m going to review is a lovechild of all of my all-time favorite after-dinner treat, Nylon Magazine, and the publishers at Universe. 

It’s called Pretty: The NYLON Book of Beauty, and it is filled with pages of faces that are off-beat and natural-looking, that embrace and challenge our notions of pretty.

And they go back to basics, with pictures of the originators:  David Bowe, Betty and Veronica, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, you get the general idea.

And I think that drawing beauty, fashion, and lifestyle ideas from people that didn’t know they were beautiful is one way to assemble looks that are strikingly original and intensely personal.  To me it seems someone who can take fashion tips from an animated character or follow the jewelry trends of impoverished women in India (cough-cough-Sienna-Miller-arm-bracelet-cough-cough) is a person who recognized elements of design free of judgment and with an open mind.

Now that’s inspiring.

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