The Dressmaker

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A brilliant and utterly heart-warming debut novel about love, family and couture. Monsieur Claude Reynaud is known throughout France for his talent for making fabulous clothes. The most elegant women in Paris regularly undertake the pilgrimage to the cobbled village of Senlis to be charmed by the tailor in his cluttered studio by the century-old apple tree. Claude can take a measurement at a glance, stores everything in his head, and fashions each dress by hand. And, despite his ex-wife's protests, he refuses to be lured by the promise of the Parisian fashion industry. He is too old change and certainly too old to fall in love- his only passion is his studio. Then one afternoon, in a cloud of spring blossom, Mademoiselle Valentine de Verlay arrives on Claude's doorstep. She commissions him to create her wedding dress. But before the first stitch has even been made, Claude realises that for the first time in his life he has fallen passionately in love and, very quickly, the seams of both their lives begin to unravel...

Reviews

A stunningly well written novel of love and longing, shot through with that sweet but melancholic tristesse, which owes much to the very French backdrop. An absolute gem. * She *
The Dressmaker is a fabulously inventive novel * In Style *
touching...will delight fans of Chocolat or Captain Corelli * Gloss Magazine *
Utterly irresistible ... The Dressmaker is a delight * Margot Livesey *
Elizabeth Oberbeck's novel shimmers with invention. Her imagination is amazingly tactile, visual and sensuous, a rare pleasure ... The Dressmaker is a wonderful debut * Beth Gutcheon *

Author Bio

Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck has worked in book and magazine publishing, contributed a regular column to Cosmopolitan, and written for Travel and Leisure, Glamour, and Working Woman, among other publications. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, with her husband and four sons. The Dressmaker is her first novel.