I was glued!
The Disappearance of Astrid Bricard by Natasha Lester
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Mizza is in Paris in 1917, working as a designer. Her story is tragic, occasionally joyful, and hard. Dismissed by the magazines and journalists of the day as Dior’s muse, she fights not only the political times of the day, the Nazis, but the gender issues.
Then we come to the swinging 69’s and all that entails. Astrid, Mizza’s abandoned daughter, is fighting for the right to be heard in the New York fashion scene. Unfortunately she’s dogged by her mother’s history. She meets Hawk, a talented designer inspired by fabrics, rather than being able to draw designs. Theirs is a tragic love story. Astrid like her mother is dismissed as Hawk’s muse. She’s not! Time and time again the media deliberately tells the story it wants the public to hear, rather than what is. No-one hears the truth about Astrid’s phenomenal talent. Her designs are unacknowledged, in reality stolen. Astrid disappears, a spectacular visual commentary, at the fashion showdown between France and America in Versailles in 1973. All that is left is a silver dress with blood on it. The dynamics between Astrid and Hawk is likened to Hamlet and Ophelia. “Ophelia drowning offstage while Hamlet rules.”
Fast forward to 2012 and Blythe, Hawk and Astrid’s daughter. She too is on the fashion treadmill fighting her mother’s reputation as nothing more than Hawk’s muse. She try’s to go her own way, but anything she does has huge media scrutiny. When she decides to design clothes under her grandmother’s label, Mizza, she faces challenges on more than one front.
Based loosely on some characters in haute couture, I was immersed, flicking pages as the story, its mystery, its highs and lows, unfolded.
Three strong women, three passed by women in terms of the fashion industry.
A truly fabulous read!
A Forever (Grand Central Pub.) ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.
Please note: Quotes taken from an advanced reading copy maybe subject to change
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