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Summary
Summary
Eighty-six-year-old Betty Halbreich is a true original. A tough broad who could have stepped straight out of Stephen Sondheim's repertoire, she has spent nearly forty years as the legendary personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, where she works with socialites, stars, and ordinary women off the street. She has helped many find their true selves through clothes, frank advice, and her own brand of wisdom. She is trusted by the most discriminating persons--including Hollywood's top stylists--to tell them what looks best. But Halbreich's personal transformation from a cosseted young girl to a fearless truth teller is the greatest makeover of her career.
A Chicago native, Halbreich moved to Manhattan at twenty after marrying the dashing Sonny Halbreich, a true character right out of Damon Runyon who liked the nightlife of New York in the fifties. On the surface, they were a great match, but looks can be deceiving; an unfaithful Sonny was emotionally distant while Halbreich became increasingly anguished. After two decades, the fraying marriage finally came undone. Bereft without Sonny and her identity as his wife, she hit rock bottom.
After she began the frightening process of reclaiming herself and started therapy, Halbreich was offered a lifeline in the form of a job at the legendary luxury store Bergdorf Goodman. Soon, she was asked to run the store's first personal shopping service. It was a perfect fit.
Meticulous, impeccable, hardworking, elegant, and--most of all--delightfully funny, Halbreich has never been afraid to tell it to her clients straight. She won't sell something just to sell it. If an outfit or shoe or purse is too expensive, she'll dissuade you from buying it. As Halbreich says, "There are two things nobody wants to face: their closet and their mirror." She helps women do both, every day.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Sartorial style becomes a philosophy of life in this spirited memoir by Halbreich (Secrets of a Fashion Therapist), Bergdorf Goodman's legendary personal shopper and the subject of the 2013 documentary Scatter My Ashes at Bergdorf's. From her affluent childhood in 1930s Chicago, through her moneyed but turbulent married life in New York, to her divorce and nervous breakdown at middle age, Halbreich recounts her life in clothes. High-end shopping had long been her major consolation when, in 1977, she found her calling: to help women-rich and poor, famous and obscure-find themselves by finding the right outfit at Bergdorf's. When dressing clients, Halbreich explains, "I try to steer them away from the herd and make them understand the beauty of individuality." She is a beacon of good taste and good sense, particularly when sharing her tart opinions on the vulgar fashion trends of the past quarter-century. The downside to her philosophizing is a tendency to lapse into cliche. (Perhaps we do not need a personal shopper to pronounce that when she was unhappy she did not know herself, whereas "now I am happy, because I do know myself.") Still, Halbreich comes across as sage and gracious as she narrates a life full of incident, taking us inside the fashion industry and one of its great institutions. Agent: Carol Mann, Carol Mann Agency. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
For 40 years, Halbreich (Secrets of a Fashion Therapist: What You Can Learn Behind the Dressing Room Door, 1997) has created fashion magic as a personal shopper with Bergdorf Goodman. Her revealing memoir chronicles her career and personal life.The author, 86, details her privileged upbringing in an affluent Chicago suburb during the 1930s. "From childhood to child bride to a childish mother, I had always been taken care of," she writes. An early marriage transplanted Halbreich to the more competitive East Coast, and New York, she writes, "was an introduction to an aggressive pursuit of fashion I had never before known." When the author's 20-year marriage crumbled, she spiraled into depression, ultimately requiring psychiatric hospitalization. However, she commenced a new life when a friend convinced her to seek employment at Bergdorf Goodman. The author's sense of style trumped her lack of sales talent, and the novice sales clerk's attire drew comment from fashion icon Carla Fendi. "I never had to look for work or even make a rsum for that matter," writes Halbreich. "My appearance, the way I paired a print or tied a blouse, gave the illusion of confidence and mastery." After more than a year without making a single sale, Halbreich suggested to management that she change her role to that of personal shopper. The author meticulously analyzes her role in her wealthy clients' lives, a role that encompasses more than finding the perfect cashmere sweater. "I wanted to give my ladies fortitude in all things, and in that they felt better for just having asked," she writes. "Like lighting a candle in a church, coming to see me was a ritual of comfort." Halbreich describes her growing independence while an unlikely romance brought stability and happiness. An intimate sojourn through the dressing rooms of one of America's most luxurious department stores. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Clotheshorses will need no introduction to media darling Halbreich. Now 86, she is still a fixture at Bergdorf Goodman, dispensing advice, one-liners, and outfits that work for women who can afford them. In her cheeky, straightforward voice (aided by coauthor Paley), she runs through a lifetime of loving a good piece of apparel, from trying on her mother's and grandmother's clothing and accessories to marrying and moving to New York, but with her own Chicago style, to finally finding a life as a personal shopper (a term she dislikes). Readers won't learn much about Halbreich's two children (she admits parenting was rather boring), but they love her still, as do the multiple generations of couture-seeking clients she's spent almost 40 years shepherding through weddings, divorces, and funerals, making sure they look great and feel comfortable. As Halbreich's long career is limned, she mentions the many celebrities and bright lights she's helped through the years; readers, too, will be helped by Halbreich's personal admissions of desperation and loneliness and how she overcame them.--Kinney, Eloise Copyright 2014 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
I'LL DRINK TO THAT: A Life in Style, With a Twist, by Betty Halbreich with Rebecca Paley. (Penguin, $16.) As a long-reigning personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman, Halbreich has counseled clientele on matters far more than the sartorial. Writing with Midwestern pragmatism about her work and a therapist's empathy for her clients, she details her privileged childhood in Chicago; marriage into a wealthy East Coast family; and professional passion found later in life. As our reviewer, Alexandra Jacobs, put it: "She might be a bird in a gilded cage, but her view of the flowers outside is unobstructed." ABOVE THE EAST CHINA SEA, by Sarah Bird. (Vintage, $15.95.) Set on Okinawa, this novel examines the island's history through the eyes of two grieving teenagers. In 1945, Tamiko worked in service of the Japanese Imperial Army and witnessed the devastating impact of violence. In later years, her story is interwoven with that of Luz, a modern-day American Air Force brat forced to adjust to life after her sister dies fighting in Afghanistan. THE LANGUAGE OF FOOD: A Linguist Reads the Menu, by Dan Jurafsky. (Norton, $15.95.) Mining sources like menus, recipes and restaurant reviews for insight, Jurafsky decodes the way food is described. He also uncovers surprising details of culinary history, including ketchup's Chinese origins; the Persian roots of fish and chips; and how the turkey was named. FUNNY ONCE: Stories, by Antonya Nelson. (Bloomsbury, $16.) Transporting readers into homes and lives in the open stretches of Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Kansas, Nelson chronicles domestic upsets and ruptures. In the opening story, a recently widowed father, his children and the family's longtime housekeeper struggle to rearrange their lives in the wake of a wife's death. FIELDS OF BLOOD: Religion and the History of Violence, by Karen Armstrong. (Anchor, $16.95.) Maintaining that "modern society has made a scapegoat of faith," Armstrong offers a rejoinder to the idea that religions are inherently violent. Spanning civilizations, conflicts and creeds from ancient Mesopotamia through to the current day, her book argues that very little bloodshed can be ascribed to religious disputes; instead, violent impulses often trace their origins to the state. 10:04, by Ben Lerner. (Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $16.) The narrator of Lerner's brilliant second novel contemplates his next literary project and the possibility of having a child with his best friend. Framed by two hurricanes, story lines intersect as the narrator considers his identity and external persona. KAFKA: The Years of Insight, by Reiner Stach. Translated by Shelley Frisch. (Princeton University, $24.95.) The second installment of an exhaustive, if piecemeal, biographical project, this volume covers the writer's final eight years (1916-24), including his work as a bureaucrat during World War I, turbulent relationships and a diagnosis of tuberculosis, which would eventually prove fatal.