HIS IS A CHRONICLE of an agonizing double loss to suicide: first the author's great love, and—dizzyingly shortly after—her precious younger brother.
   Antonella Gambotto draws the reader in from the book's very beginning: her writing is extra­ordinarly intense, occasionally to the point of discomfort. At times the reader almost wants a break from her obsession, but as Gambotto's publisher claims, the tale is hypnotizing. As The Age so eloquently puts it: ‘The writing is … like being unable to stop staring into the sun when you've been told it damages your eyes …’
   Part of the book's strange attraction is its view into the outrageous and ultimately deadly private life of Michael VerMeulen, legendary American editor of British GQ. But this slightly tabloid stuff is more than balanced by Gambotto's highly detailed, serious research into suicide statistics.
   Seemingly miraculously, the author does recover from the devastation and has some really striking thoughts about surviving tragedy. In a letter to a fellow “survivor”, she writes, ‘Our hearts have been broken, but not in the way you think. Some kind of protective shell or covering has been smashed, leaving the heart raw and exposed—hence the pain—but actually more capable of love.’
   The Eclipse is challenging both intellectually and emotionally and leaves the reader with a feeling that (s)he should start again from the beginning, so packed is it with fact and detail and passion. • JR

The Eclipse: a Memoir of Suicide is available at Broken Ankle Books: click here for more details.
 

ABOVE: Antonella Gambotto, author of The Eclipse.
 

ABOVE: The author’s copy of Undressed—the second ever autographed by Gregg.

 WASN’T sure what to expect from Stacy Gregg’s Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories as I attended its launch during L’Oréal New Zealand Fashion Week. Gregg, editor-in-chief of the newly closed-down Style magazine (it has such goodwill that I do not suspect its closure will be for long—and Gregg can expect to be very busy) is perhaps better placed than anyone in New Zealand, certain past and present Apparel staffers aside, to write about the ins and outs of New Zealand fashion with historical depth.
   But this isn’t strictly a history-book, either. Rather, the title is accurate: it’s a chance for her subjects—all New Zealand “names” such as Zambesi, Nom D, Karen Walker, Trelise Cooper and World—to tell their stories. Gregg, and collaborator Cathrin Schaer, serve merely as intermediaries, each designer’s recollection verified and reported as a professional journalist would. There is no surprise, given Gregg’s background.
   It serves its purpose well, but it leaves one wondering about the raison d’être of Undressed. It is not as though the stories have been told poorly before—the history of Starfish, for instance, has similar touchpoints to what has been reported in Lucire. New Zealand does not have much of a tabloid press—apart from those broadsheets that really possess the souls of tabloids in their quest for “news as entertainment”—so “setting the story straight” should not be a huge item on the agenda.
   However, it remains the most useful compilation of stories about how these designers got to where they are. As Gregg put it in her introduction, there are no real books on New Zealand fashion, yet dozens on other centres’. There are nice illustrations and the composition is professional, though be warned: the presence of photographs risks dating the book tremendously. Penguin’s decision to go paperback takes away the “to treasure on the bookshelf” feeling which Gregg’s, and Schaer’s, words richly deserve. • JY

Undressed: New Zealand Fashion Designers Tell Their Stories is available from bookstores in New Zealand. Click here for Horizon Bookshop’s etail link.
 

Julie Roulston is Auckland editor of FashioNZ. Jack Yan is founding publisher of Lucire and co-author of Beyond Branding: How the New Values of Transparency and Integrity Are Changing the World of Brands (London: Kogan Page, 2003).

Lucire: ‘Fashionable times’ (book reviews, May 9, 2003)