Product Description

Packed full of golden rules from one of Britain’s most stylish women, Things I Wish My Mother Had Told Me is a woman’s companion for life. Lucia van der Post reveals the secrets of dressing stylishly with advice on everything from how to organise your wardrobe, what to wear to travel and where to buy delicious underwear, great cashmere and sassy skirts. Practical health and beauty tips will help you to choose a sophisticated scent, get fitter and decide whether cosmetic surgery is for you.
Once you’ve mastered looking fantastic, learn how to add some elegance to other areas of your life. Discover great shortcuts to entertaining your guests as well as suggestions, from designers around the world, on how to make your home match the elegant new you. With advice on relationships, motherhood and how to juggle work, love and children, this is the essential handbook for women of all ages. Whether you are just starting out in life or want to age gracefully and make 60 the new 40, let Lucia van der Post guide you towards a new life and a new you – with a touch of style.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48428 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 496 pages

Vogue
`The fairy godmother doling out advice is the eminently stylish Lucia van der Post, who manages never to patronise her reader or -- as other guides do -- write as though she has been lobotomised . . . Her tips on simple but treacherously difficult things like how best to wear black are vital reading'

Review

‘The fairy godmother doling out advice is the eminently stylish  Lucia van der Post, who manages never to patronise her reader or – as other guides do –  write as though she has been lobotomised . . . Her tips on simple but treacherously difficult things like how best to wear black are vital reading’

(Vogue )

'With no-nonsense bravura she filters out the rubbish and highlights the ways to age glamorously, dress chicly, entertain fabulously, be a supportive and warm friend, mother and wife . . . Insightful, practical and poignant'

(Easy Living )

'Poised, elegant and idiosyncratic, Lucia is the grande dame of style . . . Good advice was never so glam'

(Eve )

'Finishing school in a book'

(Daily Mail/ Weekend )

'If the word elegance touches you in a deep, primal place, then this book will do it for you . . . this book is soaked in the essence of van der Post, heady but grounded with earthy undertones'

(Good Housekeeping )

'Much-adored journalist crafts wise words about fashion, fun and family'

(Daily Candy )

'A lot of information packed into this single volume, from how to dress for your age to the author's pick of the best cleansers and moisturizers available'

(Sainsbury's Magazine )

'Some tips are common sense while others are authoritative gems of insight. The Financial Times sage avoids being patronising, and offers an entertaining read, even if many tips are achievable only with a good wage'

(The Big Issue )

Eve
`Poised, elegant and idiosyncratic, Lucia is the grande dame of style . . . Good advice was never so glam'

---

Customer Reviews

Things I'm glad Lucia told me
A lovely book, full of practical tips and advice covering issues from how to eat asparagus to how to clean cashmere. It is a world apart from the endless tomes of advice for girls currently littering the shelves. This book is a truly elegant read that marries genuine words of life wisdom with real humanity, kindness and humour. Advice is delivered in a wise and helpful way, rather than in any sense hectoring. Lessons in style and elegant living that will resonate with women of every age.

An entertaining guide to glamourous living
I dipped into this book and found myself still reading an hour later! I loved her justifications for eating chocolate, tips on how to choose the perfect scent and ideas for finding the present for the person who has everything... Definitely recommended!

How to be Lucia Van Der Post
It's not a bad book, I happily read it through in a few sittings, but my jaw did drop occasionally. Like at the section on presents that seems to start at around the £500 mark and go up to splashing half a billion on a private island for a weekend!

For a book supposedly about things one's mother should tell one, I was also suprised at the vast amount on being a grandmother, and yet the brisk line about being a mother.

And there are too many sections where "cheap treats" are listed as things the rest of us save up for. And shops listed as "budget" that I find beyond mine!

I enjoyed the prose, but I think she would have been better writing an autobiography about a rich and glamorous life the rest of us can only dream of. Instead we have a how-to book making assumptions that the rest of us only lack the glamour, not the vast riches necessary to attain it.