Senin, 19 Mei 2014

Ebook Download Backtrack: The Voice Behind Music's Greatest StarsBy Tessa Niles

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Backtrack: The Voice Behind Music's Greatest StarsBy Tessa Niles

Backtrack is the star-studded account of Tessa Niles' 30 years of working alongside the greatest names in rock and pop; the story of a young girl's quest to discover her true voice as she charts her rise to become one of the most respected session singers in Britain. Follow Tessa as she records with superstars such as Eric Clapton, David Bowie and Robbie Williams, appears on the world's biggest stages, rubs shoulders with royalty and reveals the triumphs and heartbreak of life on the road. Backtrack is a story of driving ambition, first-hand experience and the accomplishment of a dedicated and talented musician.

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #1614012 in Books
  • Published on: 2015-06-08
  • Released on: 2015-06-08
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 8.50" h x .47" w x 5.51" l, .0 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 208 pages

About the Author If you were listening to music during the 1980s and 1990s then chances are that Tessa Niles performed live with some of your favourite artists and sang on your most loved tracks. Her first big break came in 1983 when Sting asked her to join The Police on the Synchronicity World Tour. Niles went on to perform with David Bowie at the legendary Live Aid concert and sang on Bowie and Jagger's hit Dancing in the Streets. She then joined Eric Clapton's band and collaborated on the first of MTV's Unplugged series which spawned the classic versions of Layla and Tears in Heaven. Producer Trevor Horn and Niles worked on many projects together including The Pet Shop Boys, ABC, Grace Jones, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Tatu and Seal. She worked on four albums with Tina Turner and on the worldwide hits What's Love Got To Do With It? and Simply The Best. Niles recorded with Duran Duran on their hits Come Undone and Notorious. She sang on the soundtrack to the films Love Actually, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones's Diary. Throughout the last three decades Tessa Niles has performed with some of the most iconic artists in music: George Harrison, Annie Lennox, Tears For Fears, The Pet Shop Boys, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Kylie Minogue and Robbie Williams to name a few.

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Sabtu, 17 Mei 2014

Download PDF Guitar Licks Encyclopedia: Over 900 Rock, Blues, and Jazz Licks, Book & MP3 CDFrom Alfred Music

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Guitar Licks Encyclopedia: Over 900 Rock, Blues, and Jazz Licks, Book & MP3 CDFrom Alfred Music

Guitar Licks Encyclopedia: Over 900 Rock, Blues, and Jazz Licks, Book & MP3 CDFrom Alfred Music


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Guitar Licks Encyclopedia: Over 900 Rock, Blues, and Jazz Licks, Book & MP3 CDFrom Alfred Music

This comprehensive collection of over 900 licks in the styles of the greatest guitarists in rock, blues, and jazz will expand your playing to levels you have never known. Rock guitarists covered include Chuck Berry, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, and many more. The blues section teaches licks, intros, and turnarounds in Delta, Chicago, Texas, rock, country, swing, minor, and slide blues styles. Jazz licks are shown and organized by chord type, with four voicings given for each chord, all notated in easy-to-read diagrams. In addition, a handy table of scales, basic theory, tips, technical instruction, and other vital topics are also included. The MP3 CD features demonstrations of all the licks in the book.

  • Sales Rank: #778925 in Books
  • Model: 00-38808
  • Published on: 2011-11-01
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 12.00" h x 8.75" w x .75" l, 1.75 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 288 pages

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Free PDF Mastering the Fujifilm X100T and X100SBy Peter Fauland

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Mastering the Fujifilm X100T and X100SBy Peter Fauland

The X100T is the third generation in Fujifilm’s popular, groundbreaking, and award-winning X100-series cameras. With its small size, powerful functionality, and classic rangefinder design, the X100 line has become the go-to camera for travel, snapshots, and street photography for amateurs and professionals alike. This book sets the X100T alongside its predecessor, the X100S, explaining everything you need to know to get the most out of these exceptional cameras.



In Mastering the Fujifilm X100T and X100S, photographer Peter Fauland goes well beyond the camera manual to offer ambitious photographers both in-depth techniques and helpful tips on how to get the most out of their cameras. Fauland not only explains each camera’s functions and features, he provides practical advice for specific shooting situations—such as urban landscapes, “silent shooting,” and portraiture—using clear instructions along with example images.



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  • The new hybrid viewfinder

  • The integrated ND filter

  • In-camera image editing

  • Effective use of flash

  • Using WiFi

  • Shooting video

  • Much, much more





Intended for those who already have a basic understanding of photography fundamentals such as exposure and composition, this book gets X100T and X100S owners quickly up and running with their cameras, significantly shortening the learning curve on the path to creating great photographs. Even for seasoned amateurs, advanced enthusiasts, and semi-pros, there are sure to be many aha moments as Fauland reveals new tips, tricks, and techniques for using the X100T and X100S cameras.

  • Sales Rank: #113862 in eBooks
  • Published on: 2015-07-20
  • Released on: 2015-07-20
  • Format: Kindle eBook

About the Author
Peter Fauland is a professional photographer and teacher who leads workshops around the world for photography enthusiasts as well as for corporate clients. Originally from the school of classic black-and-white landscape film photography, Fauland now practices portrait, event, and architectural photography. While living in Switzerland and France for several years, he documented the construction of a complex detector system at CERN/the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Geneva) and he constructed a special hybrid camera consisting of a large-format camera system with a DSLR as the sensor. Fauland currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. He believes the new generation of system cameras, such as those in the Fujifilm X-series, has “brought the work of photography back to something intimate and direct.” He adds, “If I could work with only one camera, it would be from the X100 family.”

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Selasa, 06 Mei 2014

Ebook Download Pulphead: Essays

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Pulphead: Essays

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Pulphead: Essays

Amazon.com Review

Amazon Best Books of the  Month, November 2011: What a fresh and daring voice. John Jeremiah Sullivan is a dynamic and gutsy writer, a cross between Flannery O'Connor and a decaffeinated Tom Wolfe, with just the right dash of Hunter S. Thompson. In fourteen essays ranging from an Axl Rose profile to an RV trek to a Christian rock festival to the touching story of his brother's near-death electrocution, Sullivan writes funny, beautiful, and very real sentences. The sum of these stories portrays a real America, including the vast land between the coasts. Staying just this side of cynical, Sullivan displays respect for his subjects, no matter how freakish they may seem (see Axl Rose). Put another way: if Tom Waits wrote essays, they might sound like Pulphead. --Neal ThompsonExclusive Amazon.com Interview:Though his stories have appeared for a decade in Harper's, GQ, and other magazines, John Jeremiah Sullivan wasn’t a recognizable name until Pulphead started landing on year-end best-books lists, including Time, the New York Times, and Amazon's Best Books of 2011. The New Yorker’s James Wood compares him to Raymond Carver - "with hints of Emerson and Thoreau." Elsewhere, Sullivan has been called the new Tom Wolfe, David Foster Wallace, or Hunter S. Thompson, or some combination of all three. I prefer to think of him more as the Tom Waits of long-form journalism. Sullivan’s sportswriter father was an early and lasting influence. "The stuff he wrote was so weird, when I go back and look at it. It would almost have to be classified as creative non-fiction," Sullivan told me. I asked Sullivan if his father encouraged him to become a writer. "He did the smartest and best thing he could have done for me, which was to take a very coolly distant but encouraging attitude,” he said. “I think he could tell early on that it's what I was going to do, that I wasn't really suited for much else. After college and a brief “lost period” in Ireland, Sullivan got an internship at The Oxford American magazine and spent a month in Mississippi, living in a brown-carpeted room at the Ole Miss hotel, with hookers conducting their business nearby. One night, Sullivan told his editor, Marc Smirnoff, about his musician brother’s near-death electrocution from a microphone. Smirnoff suggested he write a story about it, giving Sullivan his first professional byline. "It was just one of those things where somebody opens the door and steps aside and says, 'Don't f**k it up'," Sullivan said. "And that piece made a lot of cool things happen for me." Cool things like bylines in Harper's, The Paris Review, and The New York Times Magazine. Over the next decade he honed his reporting skills, his unique voice (personal not cynical, thoughtful not intellectual), and a particular interest in outliers. I asked: do you look for oddballs, or do they find you? "It probably betrays a weakness for grotesques," he said. "And grotesques give you little angles of insight into human nature. There are things they can't help exposing. "Sometimes I take pleasure in writing about people who make it hard for you to see their basic humanity. It gives me a very clear task as a writer to insist on it." Pulphead is filled with hunks of other people’s sometimes misshapen humanity. "The things that can happen to people... it just blows your mind." Four more questions for Sullivan: Where do you work? "I used to be one of those people who could write anywhere but for the first time I've become real attached to this corner office in our house that’s become sort of a cocoon. I keep it real disgusting so nobody will ever want to come in here. My daughter will show it to friends, almost like you'd show somebody the dungeon." Who are you reading? "It’s more about staying in constant contact with writing, always being into some writer. That keeps me inspired and it keeps me feeling like, when I sit down to write, it's part of a preexisting and ongoing conversation. It's not the scary void that people talk about of the white page. I do everything I can to cancel out that feeling." You’re a fan of bourbon – can you write drunk? - "Drinking and smoking for me are useful for getting over humps. For cracking things open. But if I try to do it in a sustained way, it gets kind of sloppy and pudding-headed. So I have to introduce it into the process at the right moments … (Bourbon) gives you a little bit of that what-the-f**k feeling." Do you think of yourself as a southern writer? "I'm not an authentic southerner by anyone's definition, and I don't self-identify as a southern writer … I'm interested in regionalism. The fact that I sort of grew up back and forth between the Midwest and the South, it sensitized me to the differences early on … Mainly I’m interested in the psycho-geography of regionalism, and how it gives shape to people's personalities.”

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Review

“Sullivan seems able to do almost anything, to work in any register, and not just within a single piece but often in the span of a single paragraph…Pulphead is the best, and most important, collection of magazine writing since Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again…Sullivan's writing is a bizarrely coherent, novel, and generous pastiche of the biblical, the demotic, the regionally gusty and the erudite.” ―New York Times Book Review“[Pulphead is] a big and sustaining pile of--as I've heard it put about certain people's fried chicken--crunchy goodness . . . What's impressive about Pulphead is the way these disparate essays cohere into a memoirlike whole. The putty that binds them together is Mr. Sullivan's steady and unhurried voice. Reading him, I felt the way Mr. Sullivan does while listening to a Bunny Wailer song called ‘Let Him Go.' That is, I felt ‘like a puck on an air-hockey table that's been switched on.' Like well-made songs, his essays don't just have strong verses and choruses but bridges, too, unexpected bits that make subtle harmonic connections . . . The book has its grotesques, for sure. But they are genuine and appear here in a way that put me in mind of one of Flannery O'Connor's indelible utterances. ‘Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks,' O'Connor said, 'I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.'” ―New York Times"[Sullivan] seems to have in abundance the storyteller’s gifts: he is a fierce noticer, is undauntedly curious, is porous to gossip, and has a memory of childlike tenacity . . . Unlike Tom Wolfe or Joan Didion, who bring their famous styles along with them like well-set, just-done hair, Sullivan lets his subjects muss and alter his prose; he works like a novelist." ―James Wood, New Yorker“Sullivan's essays have won two National Magazine Awards, and here his omnivorous intellect analyzes Michael Jackson, Christian rock, post-Katrina New Orleans, Axl Rose and the obscure 19th century naturalist Constantine Rafinesque. His compulsive honesty and wildly intelligent prose recall the work of American masters of New Journalism like Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe.” ―Time“Sullivan's essays stay with you, like good short stories--and like accomplished short fiction, they often will, over time, reveal a fuller meaning . . . Whether he ponders the legacy of a long-dead French scientist or the unlikely cultural trajectory of Christian rock, Sullivan imbues his narrative subjects with a broader urgency reminiscent of other great practitioners of the essay-profile, such as New Yorker writers Joseph Mitchell and A. J. Liebling or Gay Talese during his '60s Esquire heyday . . . [Pulphead] reinforces [Sullivan's] standing as among the best of his generation's essayists.” ―Bookforum“One ascendant talent who deserves to be widely read and encouraged is John Jeremiah Sullivan . . . Pulpheadis one of the most involving collections of essays to appear in many a year.” ―Larry McMurtry, Harper's Magazine“[The essays in Pulphead are] among the liveliest magazine features written by anyone in the past 10 years . . . What they have in common, though, whether low or high of brow, is their author's essential curiosity about the world, his eye for the perfect detail, and his great good humor in revealing both his subjects' and his own foibles . . . a collection that shows why Sullivan might be the best magazine writer around.” ―NPR“Each beautifully crafted essay in John Jeremiah Sullivan's collection Pulphead is a self-contained world…Sullivan's masterful essays invite an honest confrontation with reality, especially when considered in light of one another….Pulphead compels its readers to consider each as an equal sum in the bizarre arithmetic of American identity . . . [Sullivan is] as red-hot a writer as they come.” ―BookPage“The age-old strangeness of American pop culture gets dissected with hilarious and revelatory precision…Sullivan writes an extraordinary prose that's stuffed with off-beat insight gleaned from rapt, appalled observations and suffused with a hang-dog charm. The result is an arresting take on the American imagination.” ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)

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Product details

Paperback: 369 pages

Publisher: FSG Originals; 1 edition (October 25, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0374532907

ISBN-13: 978-0374532901

Product Dimensions:

5.1 x 1 x 7.5 inches

Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.2 out of 5 stars

98 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#127,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

In "Unknown Bards", Sullivan's essay about American Blues music, we get this quote from Dean Blackwood of Revenant Records, "...I have always felt like there wasn't enough of a case being made for [blues musicians'] greatness. You've got to have their stuff together to understand the potency of their work." The same can be said about John Jeremiah Sullivan.Until now, Sullivan's essays have entered the public sphere only piecemeal through periodicals like GQ, Harper's Magazine, and The Paris Review. With "Pulphead", we get the first compilation of Sullivan's essays, and only the second book of his ever published. What emerges from this collection, more so than if one were to read these essays on their own, is a uniquely talented American writer and voice.Sullivan's prose is humble and emotional, while never self-centered or overbearing.His prose is opposite that of a political pundit's, a sophist sportscaster, or "expert" social media consultant. Our society is quick to confuse wisdom with declarative opinions. From Sullivan, don't look for grandiose reformations of opinions into facts. Words like guarantee, definitely, undoubtedly are as foreign to Sullivan as pretentious qualifiers like, "My twenty years of successful leadership on the Hill..." Or, "I have been saying all along, and I will say it again, John Doe is the best athlete since..."Sullivan deals in grey. In his essays, he even takes self-deprecating swipes at his own credibility as a writer: "I don't know. I had no pseudo-anthropological moxie left." Or, "Ordinarily, one is tense about interrogating strangers, worried about freezing or forgetting to ask what'll turn out to be the only important question." Or about Axl Rose, who the entire essay "The Final Comeback of Axl Rose" was supposed to be about, "I don't know him at all."Such self-deprecation is uncommon from writers, and requires immense self-confidence. These swipes, in their humanity, though, have a way of increasing Sullivan's credibility. Such subtleties are the touch of a confident Velazquez at the height of his technical mastery.Sullivan's technical mastery of his craft, his tantalizing, crackling prose, is what allows the reader to learn not only more about the subject of the Sullivan's eye, but also about Sullivan himself.Whether John Jeremiah Sullivan is writing about pop culture, youth movements, religion, music, or geology, there is always reverberating just beneath the surface of the lead story the narrative of Sullivan's own life.The story of Sullivan's life has a way of turning the reader inward. The reader becomes a reader of his or her own story.In "Upon This Rock", Sullivan journeys to the Creation Christian Rock Festival. We learn that Sullivan began this journey with the mindset that his trip to Creation would be "a lark". Instead, Sullivan provides a vivid account of a humbling, human journey of self-exploration, "I went back to the trailer and had, as the ladies say where I'm from, a colossal go-to-pieces. I started to cry and then stopped myself for some reason. I felt nonsensically raw and lonely. What a d%ickhead I'd been, thinking that this trip would be a lark."In this raw emotion, and through empathy for the people he is writing about, Sullivan achieves at Creation some clarity about his own life, and his own relationship with spirituality.Sullivan's prose in "Upon This Rock" stands up to today's frenetic, digital, fragmented, and hyperlinked world. His prose is like a glorious mixed-media work of art: a orange yarn glued on top of a black and white photo, underneath and oil painting of an purple-pink evening sky.Some critics are quick to draw parallels between Sullivan's style and that of David Foster Wallace: the patched together, disjointed brilliance. A more apt description of Sullivan is that he is a self-assured, humble, updated, and less egotistical Hunter S. Thompson.In his journey to Kingston to meet the "Last Wailer," the influence of fellow Kentuckian Hunter S. Thompson is most apparent: "There was a big open-air bar. `Mind if we smoke?' Llewis asked...We rolled a two-sheeter under a giant sign that said NO GANJA SMOKING." Llewis is not the "Last Wailer". He is just a tour guide, helping Sullivan with the essay. The essay is about neither Llewis, nor Sullivan, but in a way it does become about them, and about something bigger than just Bunny Wailer.Like with Thompson's writings, in Sullivan's essays, we are always presented the author's story. But Sullivan's first person narrative is far less "Gonzo" than Thompson's.Sullivan strikes a tone that is more gently, lovingly irreverent than that of "The Decadent and The Depraved" (Thompson's brilliant essay about the Kentucky Derby). Sullivan replaces Thompson's vitriolic I'm-not-a-member-of-the-Country-Club-so everyone-who-is-is-a-small-minded-sycophant bitterness, with an even-though-a-Country-Club-can-be-a-culturally-empty-place-there-are-individuals-inside-of-it-that-I-am-sure-have-some-vulnerability-some-humanity-that-I-can-write-about empathy.Sullivan opens his heart to his subjects. While his methods- for interviewing and writing alike- may not be ganja-free, and are unconventional- they are far from bitter, angry, or temperamental. A warm self-confidence, respect for mankind, self-deprecation, and desire to know pulsates through Sullivan's writing like a bubbling brook.In "Peyton's Place" Sullivan has crafted a shrewd commentary on pop culture, parenthood, and of the way media in its many forms is blurring the lines between what is real and unreal, public and private. With a keen sense of humor, and a big heart, Sullivan has an adroit and playful way of mending his language to match his subject, "The brunet's question had given me a small, surprising tilt of nostalgia. Did we know that we used to be on a show? Did we know that?" One can almost hear the unwritten "OMG!!" at the end of that sentence.Sullivan doesn't play with language in this way to be demeaning; rather, he uses it as a way to show empathy, and to self-reflect. "Brunet" is a carefully, brilliantly chosen word. This superficial identification is similar to the kinds of superficiality that occurs within the very sitcom being filmed in Sullivan's home- a show that Sullivan is neither admonishing nor praising, because he is both removed from the show, but also has an indirect hand in fostering its production.Sullivan doesn't deal in absolutes. He is constantly exploring through his pen. He is trying to determine what is really real, who he really is, how he relates to another person, what it all means. His language will disarm you with humor, with a familiarity and modernity that carries his words- with a Trojan horse-like slippage- into your psyche for a long, long while. "Pulphead" is a collection of essays that proves Sullivan is a young and lively Southern writer not to be overlooked.

Thematic strength isn't what you usually find in a book of journalistic essays, but apparently Sullivan is drawn to strangeness wherever it rears its head. And in this world, strangeness is de rigueur. These essays wander from a Christian rock festival to a brother of Sullivan, who exhibits all sorts of odd behavior after a near-electrocution. Then there's a near-encounter with Guns n' Roses' Axl Rose, a fey old gay man, then America's ancient cave dwellers and those who find and sell their artifacts. Perhaps the oddest two are one on Jamaica's Rastafarians and another on a naturalist's theory of why animals - worldwide - seem to be increasingly attacking humans. Two pieces on reality shows could very well have been left out - their oddness speaks for itself.It would be easy to treat each of these subjects as caricatures, but that isn't Sullivan's angle. There's always something a bit confessional in his work; he's very rarely cynical, and he seems to be at least a little invested in each subject he approaches. As such, his writing is both expository and personal, and there's not a little bit of charm to each. It's as if Sullivan wants us to admit to a lot of this strangeness in each of us. And that's a refreshing point of view in a literary world replete with postmodernist cynicism.

I devoured this book in two days. Based on what I'd read beforehand, I was expecting a book of pop criticism, a la Klosterman. Instead, what I got was much more varied and profound. Generally speaking, the collection is a secret history of the United States; many of the essays walk a line between what can be known, and what cannot, in our American past. For example, Sullivan spends an hour, in one of the essays, trying to decipher the lyrics to a haunting, mostly-forgotten blues song. In another, he imagines an encounter between a cave painter, thousands of years ago, and a cave painting made thousands of years before that. The painting is an object of wonder and mystery to this historical would-be artist, just as his paintings will eventually be for us.A whole book of nothing but very clever essays on mainstream American pop culture can end up making the reader himself feel trapped at the carnival. By instead turning pop culture (The Real World, Axl Rose, etc) into another chapter in an ongoing American story, Sullivan elevates both his subject and his own full-length debut.

John Jeremiah Sullivan is a talented writer who shows great compassion on subjects not normally shown empathy. A great example, and probably the second-best essay of the collection behind "Mr. Lytle: An Essay," is the very first of the collection--"On This Rock"--about Sullivan's travels to a Christian rock concert. He doesn't sneer, and he doesn't condemn. There is no hint of superiority. "John Jeremiah Sullivan" the character is presented as a bit of a clown (probably more so than is actually true . . . though maybe not, who knows). We are meant to laugh at him as much as with him. We learn JJS himself went through a Christian-phase in high school. By understanding and recognizing his empathy we are empathetic. We were once young, foolish, brave, stupid, sad, happy. We know these things. JJS reminds us. Great collection.Not a revolution for essays/magazine writing, but it's about as good as it gets without reworking the whole damn thing.

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Senin, 17 Maret 2014

Ebook Free The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf

Ebook Free The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf

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The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf

The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf


The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf


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The Art of Navigation: Travels with Carlos Castaneda and BeyondBy Felix Wolf

The Art of Navigation examines the author's life-transforming association with the enigmatic shaman and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda, from a first encounter in 1980 up to the present, more than a decade after Castaneda's death. Journey with a modern-day shaman's apprentice on his more than thirty year trek across the globe, from hedonistic beginnings towards surrender and awakening, from a focus on magic and power to the emergence of love and compassion. The central theme of this memoir is the art of navigation, which entails living life in the spirit of an enchanting treasure hunt - playful, intuitive, fluid, and fully aware.

Starting with a mind-stopping event that occurred shortly after Castaneda's death, the narrative jumps back to follow an action-packed and magical path of discovery through Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Germany, France, Mexico, and the United States. This is the Art of Navigation, an unusual and fascinating spiritual awakening into our essential nature.

  • Sales Rank: #1546319 in Books
  • Brand: Brand: Millichap Books
  • Published on: 2010-04-15
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Dimensions: 8.98" h x .72" w x 6.42" l, 1.05 pounds
  • Binding: Paperback
  • 288 pages
Features
  • Used Book in Good Condition

Review
"It's an exciting ride! If you were a fan of Carlos Castaneda, or even if you weren't, you will enjoy The Art of Navigation." --Sharon Steffensen, editor of' YOGA Chicago

"Be prepared to step into a new way of being in the world as you turn the first page." --Donna Thomson, author of 'The Vibrant Life'

"Authentic and transformational - storytelling at its best!" --Gini Gentry, author of 'Dreaming Down Heaven'

"A thoroughly enjoyable read - Eat Pray Love meets The Power of Now." --Susanne Sims, author of 'Healing Vacations in Hawaii'

"A powerful new age collection addition." --Midwest Book Review

From the Back Cover
A 'navigator' moves through life as a result of his or her direct link with universal consciousness. For readers interested in practicing this art for themselves, Wolf summarizes the how-to of navigating life. It was first taught by Carlos Castaneda in his popular books of shamanic experience, books which sparked the New Age movement of the '70s and '80s. Now, Wolf tells his own amazing story of action guided by synchronicity. Whoever has the audacity to ask the question "What does Life want me to do?" will learn here to find the answer.

About the Author
While on a two year writing retreat in Sri Lanka, Felix Wolf found himself unexpectedly initiated into the mythological world of anthropologist and shaman Carlos Castaneda. This encounter led to a magical odyssey around the globe and culminated in a three-year apprenticeship with Castaneda until his death in 1998. During this time Wolf translated some of Castaneda's writings into his native German and served as his simultaneous translator.

Felix Wolf is an avid lucid dreamer and visionary, deeply engaged in furthering the process of our collective awakening. He has lectured internationally to a variety of audiences about holistic medicine, awareness, and the art of navigation. He currently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, with his wife, Carmela.

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Kamis, 13 Maret 2014

Download PDF Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

Download PDF Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

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Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas


Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas


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Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas

Review

The Devil Wears Herms (He Bought It at the Caesars Palace Mall in Las Vegas) By MICHIKO KAKUTANI Skip to next paragraph Back in the late 1980s, the Prada backpack made out of black or tobacco-brown parachute fabric trimmed in leather became the it bag for many would-be fashionistas. It was hip, modern, lightweight and at $450 expensive, but not as expensive as the stratospherically priced bags made by Herms and Chanel. According to the fashion reporter Dana Thomas, that Prada backpack was also the emblem of the radical change that luxury was undergoing at the time: the shift from small family businesses of beautifully handcrafted goods to global corporations selling to the middle market a shift from exclusivity to accessibility, from an emphasis on tradition and quality to an emphasis on growth and branding and profits. With Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, Ms. Thomas who has been the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris for 12 years has written a crisp, witty social history thats as entertaining as it is informative. Traveling from French perfume laboratories to Las Vegas shopping malls to assembly-line factories in China, she traces the evolving face of the luxury goods business, from design through marketing to showroom sales. She gives us some sharply observed profiles of figures like Miuccia Prada, who was a Communist with a doctorate in political science when she took over her familys small luxury goods business in 1978, and the business tycoon Bernard Arnault, who relentlessly built LVMH into a luxury monolith with dozens of brands (including Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Dior)sold around the world. Ms. Thomas peppers her narrative with lots of amusing asides about everything from how orange became Hermss signature color because it was the only color widely available during World War II to the money-saving benefits of raw-edge cutting, which has been marketed to the public as a cutting-edge, avant-garde innovation. But her focus remains on how a business that once catered to the wealthy elite has gone mass-market and the effects that democratization has had on the way ordinary people shop today, as conspicuous consumption and wretched excess have spread around the world. Labels, once discreetly stitched into couture clothes, have become logos adorning everything from baseball hats to supersized gold chains. Perfumes, once dreamed up by designers with an idea about a particular scent, are now concocted from briefs written by marketing executives brandishing polls and surveys and sales figures. With globalization, Paris and New York are no longer exclusive luxury meccas. Ms. Thomas notes that a gigantic 690,000-square-foot luxury mall called Crocus City (featuring 180 boutiques, including Armani, Pucci and Versace) is flourishing outside Moscow, and that a group of high-end boutiques will be part of a luxury complex called Legation Quarter, scheduled to open in Tiananmen Square later this year. Approximately 40 percent of all Japanese own a Vuitton product today, she says, and one recent poll showed that by 2004 the average American woman was buying more than four handbags a year. With more people visiting Caesars Palaces glitzy Forum Shops each year than Disney World, Las Vegashas made shopping synonymous with gambling and entertainment, even as outlet malls have brought designer clothing and accessories within the reach (and budget) of many suburbanites. High-profile luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Herms and Cartier were founded in the 18th or 19th centuries by artisans dedicated to creating beautiful, finely made wares for the royal court in France and later, with the fall of the monarchy, for European aristocrats and prominent American families. Luxury remained, writes Ms. Thomas, a domain of the wealthy and the famous until the Youthquake of the 1960s pulled down social barriers and overthrew elitism. It would remain out of style until a new and financially powerful demographic the unmarried female executive emerged in the 1980s. As both disposable income and credit-card debt soared in industrialized nations, the middle class became the target of luxury vendors, who poured money into provocative advertising campaigns and courted movie stars and celebrities as style icons. In order to maximize profits, many corporations looked for ways to cut corners: they began to use cheaper materials, outsource production to developing nations (while falsely claiming that their goods were made in Western Europe) and replace hand craftsmanship with assembly-line production. Classic goods meant to last for years gave way, increasingly, to trendy items with a short shelf life; cheaper lines (featuring lower-priced items like T-shirts and cosmetic cases) were introduced as well. Although this volume quotes Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, saying such changes mean that more people are going to get betterfashion and the more people who can have fashion, the better, the author reaches a more elitist and pessimistic conclusion. The luxury industry has changed the way people dress, she writes. It has realigned our economic class system. It has changed the way we interact with others. It has become part of our social fabric. To achieve this, it has sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers. In order to make luxury accessible, tycoons have stripped away all that has made it special. Luxury has lost its luster. "New York Times", 8/21/07 Luxury, and How It Became Common HARRY HURT III WANT to buy luxury products like Louis Vuitton handbags? Gucci shoes? Prada dresses? Theres no need to comb the fashion alleys of New York, Paris or Milan in search of the brands boutique stores. Just zip over to the nearest mall, where high-end department stores hawk luggage, footwear, apparel, jewelry and virtually every other designer-label item that ever appeared under the klieg lights. But be prepared to see scores of fellow shoppers already wearing the exact goods you covet. Therein lies the cruel commercial irony at the core of Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, by Dana Thomas, a Paris-based culture and fashion writer for Newsweek (Penguin Press, 375 pages, $27.95). Ms. Thomas documents in entertaining and sometimes heart-wrenching detail how the luxury industry evolved from a proudly diverse array of family-owned houses into a $157 billion-a-year mass market whose products now lack the exclusivity and in many cases the quality craftsmanship that formed the basis for their cachet in the first place. Along with changing the way we dress, the luxury industry has realigned our economic class system, Ms. Thomas asserts. It has changed the way we interact, she says. It has become part of our social fabric. To achieve this, it has sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers. In order to make luxury accessible, tycoons have stripped away all that has made it special. At first lip-blush, that might seem like merely an elitist complaint. Ms. Thomas shows, however, that the repercussions of democratizing luxury have had dire effects across the globe, and on almost every socio-economic level. The corporate quest to reduce operating costs, for example, often leads to the creation of sweatshops. Along the way come an array of related crimes ranging from fraudulent labeling and counterfeiting to embezzlement and even prostitution paid for with luxury goods in lieu of cash. If the corporatization of luxury is new, the flaunting of wealth through acquisitions is not: It dates at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Etruscans. The ancestry of modern extravagance traces to the Bourbons and the Bonapartes. (After France earned $15 million selling hundreds of millions of acres to the United States, Napoleons wife, Josephine, spent half of the money on clothes in 10 years, Ms. Thomas reports.) Ms. Thomas argues that luxury not only indicates our tastes in fashion, it also defines our political, social, and economic standing and our self-worth. In America, the prevailing standards of taste and style were once set by new rich industrialists like the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Morgans and Rockefellers. Luxury wasnt simply a product, Ms. Thomas writes. It denoted a history of tradition, superior quality, and often a pampered buying experience. Luxury was a natural and expected element of upper-class life, like belonging to the right clubs or having the right surname. And it was produced in small quantities often made to order for an extremely limited and truly elite clientele. Enter the villains of Ms. Thomas book, the 35 leading luxury brands that now control over 60 percent of the global market. The list includes Prada, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Herms and Chanel, all of which have revenue in excess of $1 billion a year. But the Mr. Big of the big luxury is LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton, an $11 billion conglomerate whose labels also include Dior, Fendi and Berluti. Some of the best-written and most damning passages in Deluxe recount the rise of LVMHs chairman, Bernard Arnault, considered by his critics to be the Machiavelli of luxury industry finance. Ms. Thomas describes how Mr. Arnault forced out the founding Vuitton clan in a vicious battle fueled by accusations of espionage and public smear tactics. Citing startlingBack in the late 1980s, the Prada backpack - made out of black or tobacco-brown parachute fabric trimmed in leather - became the "it" bag for many would-be fashionistas. It was hip, modern, lightweight and at $450 expensive, but not as expensive as the stratospherically priced bags made by Herms and Chanel. According to the fashion reporter Dana Thomas, that Prada backpack was also "the emblem of the radical change that luxury was undergoing at the time: the shift from small family businesses of beautifully handcrafted goods to global corporations selling to the middle market" - a shift from exclusivity to accessibility, from an emphasis on tradition and quality to an emphasis on growth and branding and profits. With "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, " Ms. Thomas - who has been the cultural and fashion writer for Newsweek in Paris for 12 years - has written a crisp, witty social history that's as entertaining as it is informative. Traveling from French perfume laboratories to Las Vegas shopping malls to assembly-line factories in China, she traces the evolving face of the luxury goods business, from design through marketing to showroom sales. She gives us some sharply observed profiles of figures like Miuccia Prada, who was a Communist with a doctorate in political science when she took over her family's small luxury goods business in 1978, and the business tycoon Bernard Arnault , who relentlessly built LVMH into a luxury monolith with dozens of brands (including Louis Vuitton, Givenchy and Dior) sold around theworld. Ms. Thomas peppers her narrative with lots of amusing asides about everything from how orange became Herms's signature color because it was the only color widely available during World War II to the money-saving benefits of raw-edge cutting, which has been marketed to the public as a cutting-edge, avant-garde innovation. But her focus remains on how a business that once catered to the wealthy elite has gone mass-market and the effects that democratization has had on the way ordinary people shop today, as conspicuous consumption and wretched excess have spread around the world. Labels, once discreetly stitched into couture clothes, have become logos adorning everything from baseball hats to supersized gold chains. Perfumes, once dreamed up by designers with an idea about a particular scent, are now concocted from briefs written by marketing executives brandishing polls and surveys and sales figures. With globalization, Paris and New York are no longer exclusive luxury meccas. Ms. Thomas notes that a gigantic 690,000-square-foot luxury mall called Crocus City (featuring 180 boutiques, including Armani, Pucci and Versace) is flourishing outside Moscow, and that a group of high-end boutiques will be part of a luxury complex called Legation Quarter, scheduled to open in Tiananmen Square later this year. "Approximately 40 percent of all Japanese own a Vuitton product" today, she says, and one recent poll showed that by 2004 the average American woman was buying more than four handbags a year. With more people visiting Caesars Palace's glitzy Forum Shops each year than Disney World, Las Vegas has made shoppingsynonymous with gambling and entertainment, even as outlet malls have brought designer clothing and accessories within the reach (and budget) of many suburbanites. High-profile luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Herms and Cartier were founded in the 18th or 19th centuries by artisans dedicated to creating beautiful, finely made wares for the royal court in France and later, with the fall of the monarchy, for European aristocrats and prominent American families. Luxury remained, writes Ms. Thomas, "a domain of the wealthy and the famous" until "the Youthquake of the 1960s" pulled down social barriers and overthrew elitism. It would remain out of style "until a new and financially powerful demographic - the unmarried female executive - emerged in the 1980s." As both disposable income and credit-card debt soared in industrialized nations, the middle class became the target of luxury vendors, who poured money into provocative advertising campaigns and courted movie stars and celebrities as style icons. In order to maximize profits, many corporations looked for ways to cut corners: they began to use cheaper materials, outsource production to developing nations (while falsely claiming that their goods were made in Western Europe) and replace hand craftsmanship with assembly-line production. Classic goods meant to last for years gave way, increasingly, to trendy items with a short shelf life; cheaper lines (featuring lower-priced items like T-shirts and cosmetic cases) were introduced as well. Although this volume quotes Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue, saying such changes mean that "more people are going to get betterfashion" and "the more people who can have fashion, the better," the author reaches a more elitist and pessimistic conclusion. "The luxury industry has changed the way people dress," she writes. "It has realigned our economic class system. It has changed the way we interact with others. It has become part of our social fabric. To achieve this, it has sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers. In order to make luxury 'accessible, ' tycoons have stripped away all that has made it special. "Luxury has lost its luster." --"Sunday New York Times" 8/19/07 Luxury, and How It Became Common HARRY HURT III WANT to buy luxury products like Louis Vuitton handbags? Gucci shoes? Prada dresses? There's no need to comb the fashion alleys of New York, Paris or Milan in search of the brands' boutique stores. Just zip over to the nearest mall, where high-end department stores hawk luggage, footwear, apparel, jewelry and virtually every other designer-label item that ever appeared under the klieg lights. But be prepared to see scores of fellow shoppers already wearing the exact goods you covet. Therein lies the cruel commercial irony at the core of "Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster", by Dana Thomas, a Paris-based culture and fashion writer for Newsweek (Penguin Press, 375 pages, $27.95). Ms. Thomas documents in entertaining and sometimes heart-wrenching detail how the luxury industry evolved from a proudly diverse array of family-owned houses into a $157 billion-a-year mass market whose products now lack the exclusivity - and in many cases the quality craftsmanship - that formed the basis for their cachet in the first place. Along with changing the way we dress, the luxury industry "has realigned our economic class system," Ms. Thomas asserts. "It has changed the way we interact," she says. "It has become part of our social fabric. To achieve this, it has sacrificed its integrity, undermined its products, tarnished its history and hoodwinked its consumers. In order to make luxury 'accessible, ' tycoons have stripped away all that has made it special." At first lip-blush, that might seem like merely an elitist complaint. Ms. Thomas shows, however, that the repercussions of "democratizing" luxury have had dire effects across the globe, and on almost every socio-economic level. The corporate quest to reduce operating costs, for example, often leads to the creation of sweatshops. Along the way come an array of related crimes ranging from fraudulent labeling and counterfeiting to embezzlement and even prostitution paid for with luxury goods in lieu of cash. If the corporatization of luxury is new, the flaunting of wealth through acquisitions is not: It dates at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Etruscans. The ancestry of modern extravagance traces to the Bourbons and the Bonapartes. (After France earned $15 million selling hundreds of millions of acres to the United States, Napoleon's wife, Josephine, spent half of the money on clothes in 10 years, Ms. Thomas reports.) Ms. Thomas argues that luxury not only indicates our tastes in fashion, it also defines our political, social, and economic standing and our self-worth. In America, the prevailing standards of taste and style were once set by new rich industrialists like the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Morgans and Rockefellers. "Luxury wasn't simply a product," Ms. Thomas writes. "It denoted a history of tradition, superior quality, and often a pampered buying experience. "Luxury was a natural and expected element of upper-class life, like belonging to the right clubs or having the right surname. And it was produced in small quantities - often made to order - for an extremely limited and truly elite clientele." Enter the villains of Ms. Thomas' book, the 35 leading luxury brands that now control over 60 percent of the global market. The list includes Prada, Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Herms and Chanel, all of which have revenue in excess of $1 billion a year. But the "Mr. Big" of the big luxury is LVMH Mot Hennessy Louis Vuitton, an $11 billion conglomerate whose labels also include Dior, Fendi and Berluti. Some of the best-written - and most damning - passages in ""Deluxe"" recount the rise of LVMH's chairman, Bernard Arnault, considered by his critics to be the Machiavelli of luxury industry finance. Ms. Thomas describes how Mr. Arnault forced out the founding Vuitton clan in a vicious battle fueled by accusations of espionage and publica What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashiona a"Los Angeles Times" a A crisp, witty social history thatas as entertaining as it is informative.a aMichiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" a Globalization, capitalization, class, and culture . . . A fascinating book.a aFareed Zakaria, "Newsweek" a What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashion, exposing the underbelly of the $157-billion luxury industry and the lockstep consumer psychology behind its glamorous veneer.a a"Los Angeles Times"What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashion "Los Angeles Times" A crisp, witty social history that s as entertaining as it is informative. Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" Globalization, capitalization, class, and culture . . . A fascinating book. Fareed Zakaria, "Newsweek" What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashion, exposing the underbelly of the $157-billion luxury industry and the lockstep consumer psychology behind its glamorous veneer. "Los Angeles Times"? What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashion? ?"Los Angeles Times" ? A crisp, witty social history that's as entertaining as it is informative.? ?Michiko Kakutani, "The New York Times" ? Globalization, capitalization, class, and culture . . . A fascinating book.? ?Fareed Zakaria, "Newsweek" ? What Fast Food Nation did for food service, this book does for fashion, exposing the underbelly of the $157-billion luxury industry and the lockstep consumer psychology behind its glamorous veneer.? ?"Los Angeles Times"

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About the Author

Dana Thomas began her career writing for the style section of The Washington Post and served for 15 years as the European cultural and fashion correspondent for Newsweek in Paris. She is a contributing editor for T: The New York Times Style Magazine and has written for The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and the Financial Times. She lives in Paris.

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Product details

Paperback: 384 pages

Publisher: Penguin Books; Reprint edition (July 29, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0143113704

ISBN-13: 978-0143113706

Product Dimensions:

5.5 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches

Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.4 out of 5 stars

155 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#81,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

What should we do with fashion? Should we keep it small and artisanal or should we make it available for the mass?How to balance exclusivity with increasing profit for shareholders is tricky. I certainly would not want to be in the shoes of the head of fashion houses or the CEO of a fashion corp.i hope Ms Thomas will write a follow up on how fast fashion, street fashion, and fashion bloggers have influence brands and brand management. Now a days I see more and more cooperation between brands and bloggers/editors. I find that I am influenced by seeing what the fashion bloggers wear and what street fashion photogs capture. I know more about the name of a purse and recognize certain trends this way, much more than fashion mags and editorials.

I read this book a while back and a lot of the things in it are still in my mind. It has changed the way I think and shop. This book will make you think twice about the luxury products you buy. Having just entered the job market and being in need of good quality wardrobe staples this book was right on time. I've learned that some so called luxury products aren't even worth the wrapping they come in. While other products still retain the quality of a hundred years ago. Being a seamstress I already had suspicions about some of the things called luxury nowadays and this book has not only confirmed my suspicions but informed me greatly.One big thing about this book is that it is big on history. Many famous houses' histories are detailed in this book and while you might feel it a little boring at times, I think it contributes very much to the bigger picture.If you are trying to become a more conscientious shopper like myself, also watch the documentary "The True Cost".

Top reviews sum the book up pretty well. It is a very informative history of luxury production, and goes into quite a lot of detail on the formation of the main luxury houses and follows them through their transition into modern growth-focused companies. It also goes into a lot of detail on how international consumers (particularly in Japan, China, India, and Russia) have influenced the industry. The non-trivial amount of typos throughout the text (kindle edition) was a bit annoying, but overall the writing was definitely readable (it is not in academese). I wish that there was a follow-up chapter as it has been about a decade since this was published, so if you are looking for the most up-to-date information, this is probably not your book.

Dana Thomas, writing as a well informed journalist, provides an entertaining expose of the burgeoning luxury market. She provides detailed profiles of the world's most sought after brand names and how they have transformed their industry from made to order to made in China/India/Russia.The book is well written and avoids any technical jargon. The anecotes and first hand research is admirable. She definitely put her time and energy in researching famous luxury houses and provides some interesting commentary on how things are changing.I would highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to learn about the behind the scenes business of famous luxury brands and the "democratization of luxury."

A must-read if you are: a connoisseur of old school luxury items (artisanal couture type) OR a throwaway fashion type who never saw much difference between the faux and the fine handbag OR the international traveler or culturally curious person who wonders about the definition of luxury as it crosses state boundaries in the global marketplace.... finely researched, well presented in a highly readable style. A truly insider view. I've had a personal boycott against LVMH since reading it a few years ago. highly recommended.

If luxury is available to all - does it cease to be luxury? This is the primary argument of Dana Thomas' fascinating examination of an industry that tends to defy rational consumer behavior (but who said we consumers were ever rational!). She has thoroughly researched the subject and the book is replete with facts and figures embedded in a narrative that reads more like a novel. Given it is written in 2007, there are some statistics or trends that will have been tested by our economic troubles, however, the primary premise and other key facets of the book remain true and relevant. And what overwhelms is the author's curiosity and nose for appropriate detail.It is equal parts history, sociology, and brand and business strategy treatise. Overall, it is a compelling indictment of how the luxury industry has evolved from artisans to staggering brand behemoths presiding over a $157 billion industry (35 brands control 60% of the business). As Thomas explains, "The way we dress reflects not only our personality but also our economic, political, and social standing and our self-worth." Luxury brands have leveraged this insight and rolled out calculated marketing strategies to feed our desires and insecurities. And we have responded appropriately pursuing luxury to differentiate ourselves.The author defines the subject, "Luxury wasn't simply a product. It denoted a history of tradition, superior quality, and often a pampered buying experience. Luxury was a natural and expected element of upper-class life, like belonging to the right clubs or having the right surname." Yet, soon, in the interests of profits, luxury companies, "turned their sights on a new target audience: the middle market, that broad socioeconomic demographic that includes everyone one from teachers and sales executives to high-tech entrepreneurs, McMansion suburbanites, the ghetto fabulous, even the criminally wealthy."This democratization of luxury made the goods accessible to more and grew the top and bottom lines. However, as Thomas concludes, this eroded all that made it special in the first place. She argues that Louis Vuitton now "has a logo as recognizable as the Golden Arches". Business leaders who control these brands "have shifted the focus from what the product is to what it represents". Francoise Montenay of Chanel believes, "Luxury is exclusivity. At a minimum, it must be impeccable. Maximum, unique."I enjoyed the histories of many of the luxury brands, characters featured like Bernard Arnault and Tom Ford, facts such as Charles Frederick Worth being among the first to stage fashion shows and the first to put a signature label on his clothes, pros and cons of brand licensing, designers becoming superstars, the always staggering practice of counterfeiting, the vintage market, and the impact of outlet malls.In terms of the book's premise, Tom Ford says, "Luxury fashion brands today are too available, everything is too uniform, and customer business too pedestrian." I suggest you draw your own conclusion by reading this tremendous book which is available to all but that will be read by a few.

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