Wear and Tear (Paperback)

Tracy Peacock Tynan, daughter of the world-famous theatre critic Kenneth Tynan and the author Elaine Dundy, grew up in London and New York during the 1950s and '60s. Her parents threw lavish parties where style was essential and guests included the biggest Hollywood, theatre and literary legends - among them Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Orson Welles, Gore Vidal, Tennessee Williams and Maggie Smith. As Tynan describes it, her parents were "trying their best to be the Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald of the '50s." In Wear and Tear, Tynan reveals the glamour, secrets and dark side of her parents' highly stylised world of endless jet-setting and savage fights, the struggles she faced as she tried to take charge of her life, and the happiness she eventually found as a costume designer, writer, wife and mother. She tells her astonishing story through the prism of the clothes which have come to symbolise her turbulent life: her father's dandy attire, her mother's mink coat and Pucci dress, and donning Ossie Clark apparel on Oxford Street as a young adult. Her love for fashion eventually inspired her to a career as a Hollywood designer, dressing Richard Gere, Bruce Willis, Julie Andrews, Zooey Deschanel and other stars. Frank, funny and deftly observed, Wear and Tear is an immensely engrossing, charming and eye-opening memoir of an extraordinary life.