ESQUIRE FASHION GUIDE FOR ALL OCCASIONS.

Edited by Frederic A. Birmingham '33. New York: Harper & Brothers,1957. 204 pp. $2.50.

This is a fashion book, not a volume devoted to style, a fact that is established on the opening page of the very first chapter, with the clarifying observation that "Fashion is the guide to what you wear and why you wear it and how you wear it. Style is how your clothes are cut or befurbelowed."

The product of the joint effort of staff members of Esquire magazine, and edited by Frederic A. Birmingham '33, this is intended as "the complete authority on male apparel, taste, fashion and grooming" - a book "to help you express yourself better through the right clothes; give you some of the ground rules for selecting them; to show you how to take care of them; and to keep you spotted on the right duds to wear for the right occasions."

Unlike the situation that so largely prevails in the feminine world where fashions are often dictated by a small group of designers, men's fashions are the result of exposure and selected acceptance: a custom tailor or good ready-to-wear manufacturer presents certain new features that the male public may then either adopt or reject. It is a democratic fashion world, as contrasted to the dictatorial one of the ladies - or so it is heartening to believe, even if in rare moments of candor one suspects that the observation is more pleasing, ego-bolstering fiction than solid, realistic fact.

But one thing that is probably closer to the point of accuracy is that contrary to the normal desire of women to be, within certain limits, different in matters of dress, most men want the opposite: they want to appear not-too-unlike the next fellow, to be similar, to conform. This has, of course, a decided effect on men's fashion.

Esquire Fashion Guide... treats nearly every item of clothing and all that must be known about it for formal, semiformal or informal occasions and for business, sports, or other activities. And along with a wealth of basic information on selection, usage, and care, the reader is given a liberal sprinkling of data from the area of masculine sartorial minutiae, such as the pronouncement that to be a practitioner of precise procedural propriety in donning his hat a gentleman should not use one, but always both, hands!

Written in an easy, jaunty style (that reaches its lyric height, perhaps, in the chapter on collegiate garb, "Attire Under the Elms"), the volume has special chapters on such subjects as weddings, travel, and summer fashions; and features several helpful tables, as well as a group of illustrations.

There are nearly forty pages devoted to a glossary, which gives fashion words and their meanings (from "abrasion resistance" to "zein fibers"), and a fine index is also provided at the end of this interestingly done and useful book.