The Amy Vanderbilt Success Program for Women

This is an interesting little book. It is very short - only 64 pages - and paperback, which is highly unusual for a sewing book of any era. There is a short introduction by Amy Vanderbilt, before Margolis takes over with the sewing instruction. At first I was a bit taken aback by the organization of this book - we jump from discussing “A Certain Style” to bound buttonholes. What? But then I realized, oh, this is the “ABC's” of sewing. A-B-C. Topics are covered alphabetically. Duh. Wow I feel dumb for taking so long to figure that out.

Because of the structure and size of this book, I feel as though it covers fewer topics than her other, more massive tomes. Despite the fact that I think it still has a good amount of information, and, actually, a few better illustrations than many of her other books (though others have been re-used from other volumes). Topics covered include: bound buttonholes, cutting fabric, gussets, hand stitches, zippers, and more. Some of the letters cover specific skills in depth, while others feel like a bit of fluff. However, for what it is, I feel that this book does an nice job of dispersing the maximum amount of information in the minimum amount of pages, even if it is a bit odd structurally. Though, now that I've read through it, it should be terribly easy to look something up, so perhaps that structure really isn't too horrible after all? I don't know that I would recommend this book to the more advanced home sewer - you can get more detailed information about construction from one of Margolis' other works - but it is an interesting little book to have as part of the collection.