Rachelle Bergstein – författare

What is it about a pair of shoes that so enchants women of all ages, demographics, political affiliations, and style tribes? Part social history, part fashion record, part pop-culture celebration, Women from the Ankle Down seeks to answer that question as it unfolds the story of shoes in the twentieth century. The tale begins in the rural village of Bonito, Italy, with a visionary young shoemaker named Salvatore Ferragamo, and ends in New York City, with a fictional socialite and trendsetter named Carrie Bradshaw. Along the way it stops in Hollywood, where Judy Garland first slipped on her ruby slippers; New Jersey, where Nancy Sinatra heard something special in a song about boots; and the streets of Manhattan, where a transit strike propelled women to step into new cutting-edge athletic shoes. Fashion aficionado Rachelle Bergstein shares the stories behind these historical moments, interweaving the design innovations and social changes that gave each one its lasting significance and appeal. Bergstein shows how the story of shoes is the story of women, told from the ankle down.Beginning with the well-heeled Suffragettes in the 1910s, women have fought for greater freedom and mobility, a struggle that exploded in the 1960s with the Women's Liberation Movement, and culminated in the new millennium with our devotion to personal choice. Featuring interviews with designers, historians, and cultural experts, and a cast of real life characters from Marilyn Monroe to Jane Fonda, Women from the Ankle Down is a lively, compelling look at the evolution of modern women and the fashion that reflects - and has shaped - their changing lives.

From the author of Women from the Ankle Down comes a lively cultural biography of diamonds, which explores our society's obsession with the world's most brilliant gemstone and the real-world characters who make them shine. "A diamond is forever." Who among us doesn't recognize this phrase and, with it, the fascination that these shiny gemstones hold in our collective imagination as symbols of royalty, stars, and eternal love? But who gave us this catchphrase? Where do these gemstones and their colorful legacies originate? How did they become our culture's symbol of engagement and marriage? Why have they retained their coveted status throughout the centuries? Rachelle Bergstein's cultural biography of the diamond illuminates the enticing, often surprising story of our society's enduring obsession with the hardest gemstone-and the people who have worked tirelessly to ensure its continued allure.From the South African mines where most diamonds have been sourced since the late 1890s to the companies who have fought to monopolize them; from the stars who have dazzled in them to the people behind the scenes who have carefully crafted our understanding of their value-Brilliance and Fire offers a glittering history of the world's most coveted gemstone and its greatest champions and most colorful enthusiasts. Brilliance and Fire is illustrated with 16 pages of color photographs.