Vintage Affair (Wolff)

A Vintage Affair
Isabel Wolff, 2010
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553386622



Summary
In Isabel Wolff’s captivating A Vintage Affair, a treasured child’s coat becomes a thread of hope connecting two very different women.
 
Her friends are stunned when Phoebe Swift abruptly leaves a plum job at the prestigious Sotheby’s auction house to open her own vintage clothing shop in London—but to Phoebe, it’s the fulfillment of a dream. In the sunlight-flooded interior of Village Vintage, surrounded by Yves Saint Laurent silk scarves, Vivienne Westwood bustle skirts, cupcake dresses, and satin gowns, Phoebe hopes to make her store the hot new place to shop, even as she deals with two ardent suitors, her increasingly difficult mother, and a secret from her past that casts a shadow over her new venture.

For Phoebe, each vintage garment carries its own precious history. Digging for finds in attics and wardrobes, Phoebe is rewarded whenever she finds something truly unique, for she knows that when you buy a piece of vintage clothing, you’re not just buying fabric and thread—you’re buying a piece of someone’s past. But one particular article of clothing will soon unexpectedly change her life.
 
Therese Bell, an elderly Frenchwoman, has an impressive clothing collection. But among the array of smart suits and couture gowns, Phoebe finds a child’s sky-blue coat—an item with which Bell is stubbornly reluctant to part. As the two women become friends, Phoebe will learn the tale of that little blue coat. And she will discover an astonishing connection between herself and Therese Bell—one that will help her heal the pain of her own past and allow her to love again. (From the publisher.)

---

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Warwickshire, England, UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Currently—lives in London, England

In her words:
I was born in Warwickshire, read English at Cambridge and after spells in the theatre and in advertising, I got a job at the BBC. I had twelve very happy years at BBC World Service radio where I was a producer and reporter in the Features department and in Current Affairs.

I travelled widely compiling documentaries in Central America, Australia, Africa and the Far East. I also wrote freelance articles for magazines and newspapers such as the Spectator, Evening Standard, Independent and Daily Telegraph who, in 1997, commissioned me to write a comic, girl-about-town column, Tiffany Trott. Within a month of the first column appearing I'd been signed up by HarperCollins to turn Tiffany's adventures into a book. To my amazement HarperCollins then said they'd like another book, and another, and so somehow, without having set out to be a novelist, here I am.

In my novels self-deception is the main theme. That's why I write in the first person, because I love the fact that my heroine usually doesn't see what's really going on (or is pretending she doesn't) but the reader, gradually, does. So the reader is always one step ahead, seeing through the evident ambivalence of my heroine, or the naked guise. For writing in the first person opens up an ironic gap between what my heroine says and what she clearly feels, or between what she thinks is going on around her and what really is going on. By the end of the novel she either acknowledges, or is forced to face up to, the truth about who she truly is, or what she wants My books are all written with a combination of pathos and humour because that's true to life.

I live in London, very close to Portobello Market (where I often escape to browse the vintage clothes) with my partner Greg and our two children, Alice and Edmund. In my spare time I play table football with them. (From the author's website.)

---

Book Reviews
Romance in a vintage clothes shop—we were sold from line one. Luckily, this book lives up to its hype, and is filled with all the sensory goodness that leads to inevitable comparisons to Joanne Harris—this is an author to bookmark.
Irish Tatler

What makes this book stand out is Wolff’s passion for vintage fashion; velvety, silken prose describes the clothes and their history, with several pieces telling rich stories that develop into compelling sub-plots.
Easy Living

Readers with a passion for couture fashion will appreciate Wolff’s well-researched and intricate descriptions of beautiful, significant vintage pieces. While the dialogue is occasionally a bit bloated, this book is a smooth read with enough flair and fun for the beach or the pool. —Annie Bostro
Booklist


Vintage clothing lover Phoebe opens her own resale boutique in London's Blackheath neighborhood, meeting much success. She's grateful for the hustle and bustle the shop provides, because it lets her forget her guilt over the death of her best childhood friend, not to mention that she just left her fiancé at the altar. When the elderly Mrs. Bell contracts with Phoebe to sell her entire wardrobe, Phoebe finds herself reeled in by the story of Mrs. Bell's childhood friend, thought lost in the horrors of the Holocaust. Additionally, our heroine's got not one but two new suitors keeping her on her toes. Sounds like a lot, but Wolff manages to keep every story line interesting and on track, including plenty of fashion talk. Verdict: Fans of British chick lit, rejoice! (And readers who aren't already fans, prepare to become such.) With a wide cast of realistic, wonderfully drawn characters, a deft blending of the past with the present, and a seemingly effortless managing of several plots at once, this charming novel by the author of Behaving Badly and The Trials of Tiffany Trott deserves a place in all popular fiction collections. —Rebecca Vnuk, Forest Park, IL
Library Journal

---

Discussion Questions 
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Vintage Affair:

1. Describe Phoebe Swift. Has the author drawn her as a fully-developed or a one-dimensional character? Do you find her sympathetic?

2. How responsible is Phoebe for what happened to Emma?

3. What about Phoebe's family—her parents and, in particular, her mother?

4. Which of Phoebe's three romantic interests were you rooting for...and why.

5. Talk about the connection between Therese Bell and Phoebe. What draws them together? What do their losses have in common? Why hasn't Therese shared her story of Monique with anyone over all these years?

6. Were you engaged by the detailed passages about vintage clothing—the style, fabric, and history of fashion?

7. Discuss the role of clothing with regards to a person's emotional/psychological state? Do clothes really make a difference in how people think or feel about themselves? Would you say that clothing reflects or affects a person's inner-self?

8. What is the attraction people have to vintage clothing? Phoebe says, "when you buy a piece of vintage clothing you're not just buying fabric and thread—you're buying a piece of someone's past." Do you wear vintage clothes? If so, is the idea of wearing a piece of someone else's life appealing to you? If you've never purchased vintage clothes, why not?

9. A number of reviewers insist that A Vintage Affair is "NOT just chick lit." First, what is chick-lit and what separates it from so called "serious fiction"; second, do you agree that this book has depth and complexity?

10. Coincidence plays a role in this novel. Does it work as a narrative device: do you accept the story's dependence on chance...or do you find it contrived?

11. Loss and regret are thematic concerns explored in A Vintage Affair. How do those issues play out in the novel? What does Phoebe come to learn by the end—what insights has she gained?

12. Is the book's ending satisfying? Were all the loose ends tied-up? Too much so...or not enough?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)