I have this thing with books: Ruby Redstone

Each week Conch interviews an avid reader about the role books have played in their lives, how literature shapes their world, and how paradise, truly is a library, whatever form it might take.

Based in New York City, Ruby Redstone runs the concept store Mess and shares her love for fashion history through her newsletter, Old Fashioned. Whether she is researching medieval shoes or 1960s skirts, she finds her inspiration in beautiful objects and the stories of the people who wore them.

Introduce yourself and tell us about what inspires you.

I’m Ruby Redstone. I run Mess, a concept store in New York City, and I’m a fashion historian. I write about fashion history for my own newsletter Old Fashioned, as well as a variety of fashion media outlets. Naturally, I find most of my inspiration in the depths of history, though I’m not particularly wedded to any one time period. I love a medieval shoe just as much as a 1960s sequinned skirt! I suppose I am most inspired by individual objects of beauty, which take me down research rabbit holes and into the stories and emotions of those who wore/held/made them.

How would you summarise your bookshelf?

I often say that I’m one of the only people who is actually using coffee table books! I constantly need to reference imagery from fashion history and designer archives, so I am often sifting through big photo books and exhibition catalogues. I keep the most beautiful ones on display, and then the less attractive (but equally useful) bits are squirreled away under my bed.

What types of books is it predominantly made up of?

My bookshelf is probably 50% exhibition catalogues from the likes of the Costume Institute and the Museum at FIT, 25% designer or photographer monographs, 10% dense fashion theory books, 10% crappy mystery novels that I read on vacation, and 5% random vintage treasures that my husband and I drag home about things like ice cream flavours from the 1800s or Samurai codes of conduct.

Pick a book and tell us why it’s special to you.

This is a little bit silly, but I loved this book called Bat as a child, and now my kids love it too. It’s so special getting to relive moments of your own childhood through books. Also, the book is all about how this bat wears crazy outfits and accidentally starts trends, which, naturally, I love.

Where are your top bookstores?

I get most of my books at The Strand or McNally Jackson. I get all my stationary at Kinokuniya! For kids’ books, I love Pillow Cat and Spiral Books.

Share a book you have been lent.

I actually dislike when people lend me books because I’m very messy, and I’m always nervous that I’m going to return their book to them dog-eared and soaked in spilled matcha. However, I have been lending my copy of Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott to anyone who will listen to me. It’s an only-lightly-fictionalised 1920s novel about a young woman going through a divorce, her life in New York made both glittering and bitter by her newfound freedom.

If you wrote a book, what would it be about?

I have actually been writing a book for several years now, so...stay tuned! And don’t remind my agent!

Do you have a shelving system?

I use these pink square bookshelves from Montana because, well, I need everything in my life to be pink. They’re also great for children because they’re low to the ground and you can tuck little toys etc. inside.

Do you remember the first book that ever truly moved you?

I remember that I had to get special permission at school to read The Bell Jar in the sixth grade. It was completely inappropriate for an 11-year-old, of course, but my parents were always really open to letting me read things that were challenging. Sylvia Plath opened my mind to the duality of beauty and pain in language, as she did for so many other women, and she sowed early seeds of feminism that have come to define a lot of my reading and writing now.

What was the last book you read?

One of Us by Elizabeth Day--like I said, I can’t resist a rather silly mystery. I also read/stared at Jenny Walton’s Jenny Say Quois from cover to cover, as it is just packed with her dainty illustrations and fabulous outfits.

What’s on your bedside table / what’s next to read?

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I feel guilty that I haven’t read this one yet, as I absolutely love Henry Miller! His work is so summery to me, so I’ve been saving this one for warm days.

Dinner on Friday night with one author: who are you taking?

I mean, obviously Henry Miller would be a lot of fun. More realistically, I’d love to have dinner with Jeffrey Euginedes. I’m such a big fan of his. Also, I think Edith Wharton and I could kick it for ages. She’s my top choice, indubitably, but I’d feel a lot of pressure about what to wear. She writes about clothing so wonderfully.

Is there a book that summarises your career?

Well I certainly hope not, as I feel my career is just getting started! But I often look at this bookplate designed by the fashion historian and writer Stella Mary Newton. She founded the fashion history program at the Courtauld that I attended nearly one hundred years later. A la mode, a la morte!

Is there a book that encapsulates your passions?

That would be far too big a task for one single book, hence why there are so many bulging out from under my bed...