The Dressmaker

Author/Guide: Kate Alcott

Why a Booktrail?

1912: A unique take on the Titanic story featuring the scandal of one passenger, a famous fashion designer, who may have saved herself at the expense of others

ISBN: 978-0751549232
Genre: Fiction, Romance

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What you need to know before your trail

Tess is an aspiring seamstress, so when she is hired by the famous designer Lady Lucile Duff Gordon as a personal maid, she can’ believe her luck. This could be her chance to get into the fashion industry. Her first test in her new role is to accompany her new mistress over to New York on the new and much talked about ship, the Titanic on her maiden voyage…..

Following the events of that tragic night, there is even more tragedy to come and investigations into what happened and who survived and why are begun.

Tess has to face up to whether her new saviour not only in the fashion work but who has given her a new chance in a harsh world, could have sacrificed others for her own gain.

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Travel Guide

This novel is based on true historical fact and this adds a unique spin as well as a enthralling reality on the story of the Titanic that has never been told.

the story of Lady Duff Gordon is true. She was a world fashion designer who escaped with her husband and secretary on a life boat. It should an could have held 40 or so people but only 12 were found on board. The mystery and controversy surrounded whether she and her husband had bribed the crewmen to not take too many people. Following the tragedy and the subsequent trial, Lady Duff, the head of the House of Lucile began to go down hill. She separated from her husband and the House of Lucile began a long decline. That’s not before we are tantalized by her world of fabric and glitz on board –

“How beautiful it was. All those confident, wealthy men and women, most of them in evening dress, laughing, lifting glasses filled with brandy.”

It’s the telling of such a well known story from the view point of a fictional character – Tess – concerning her experience of a real life survivor that is so fascinating here.

The before – on the damp Cherbourg docks – sets the scene for the hope and escape of the journey ahead. but as soon as the Titanic sets sail, the allure of the ship takes over. the tragedy itself is shown over a few pages but with poignant images – the wreckage being ‘a composite of intimate pieces of lost lives. A baby’s bonnet intertwined with a long white woman’s glove.”

It’s the trials which are the real setting here – the Waldorf Astoria hotel sits as a court room for the investigation of the White Star line and those on board. Fascinating scenes of raw emotion and the unravelling of a national tragedy.