Title: Seduction: A Celebration of Sensual Style Author: Caroline Cox Publisher: Octopus Publishing Group Publish Date: 2006 Pages: 176 Genres:: History, Fashion, Non-Fiction, Women's Studies Reviewer: Jerome D'Angelo

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Just as we open Seduction: A Celebration of Sensual Style by Caroline Cox, we see the most apropos description of just what seduction really is. There stands a young Dustin Hoffman in the role of Benjamin in Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, the black stocking-clad leg of the infamous Mrs. Robinson extending across the bottom of the entire page, slightly out of focus but still very commanding. On the opposite page, we see, in big bold letters, French Sociologist Jean Baudrillard’s wonderful observation, “To seduce is to render weak.”

Seduction can be thought of as both a historical perspective on the methods and tools used by women throughout the last few centuries in the art of “come hither,” and also as a commentary on the power it has afforded them, even during times when that would have been all the power they yielded. Even when women couldn’t control their political, cultural, or reproductive rights, they could still strike hoards of men breathless with the aid of a simple pair of high heels or a flip of their hair.

Cox would probably know about this better than most. A professor of cultural history at the University of the Arts in London, Cox is also an international authority on the history of fashion. She works as a cultural trends advisor for Vidal Sassoon and her previous books include Stiletto and I Do: 100 years of Wedding Fashion.

Seduction appears, at first, like a simple coffee table book, the kind you’d thumb through from right to left if you saw it in a friend’s living room, completely disregarding the fact that there are actual words next to all the pretty pictures. Don’t be fooled; Cox’s analysis of tease and attraction makes for a book filled with as much substance as there is style. Sure, we get plenty of great shots of Madonna, Lana Turner, Marilyn Monroe and the four old chicks from Sex And The City.  But we also get plenty of information about trends in fashion that created the seductive woman throughout history.

Cox acknowledges that modern-day conceptions of what is sexy can make women feel as though less is more when it comes to dressing provocatively. Sometimes it is what’s not shown that is the most seductive. “It is understanding the arts of titillation, flirtation and tease that makes a seductress,” Cox writes, “especially now in an era suffering from an overabundance of naked bodies, particularly of the female kind.” The packaging definitely matters.  A pair of naked breasts are great. Put them into a nice little black bra and give them a bit of a boost, and suddenly they become fantastic!

Seduction does an excellent job of demonstrating this in the images it provides the reader. They are not just there to be gawked at, as in other similarly sized books, but there to serve as illustrations for the text. Can-can dancers at the Moulin Rouge are pictured in Cox’s chapter entitled “A Glimpse of Stocking,” along with a rather silly-looking drawing from a late 19th century postcard, showing an older man’s delight at seeing a younger woman adjusting her nylons during an evening constitutional. As Seduction moves forward in time, flappers holding cigarettes appear, as do their heads of short, shiny, black hair and their ::gasp:: bare shoulders. A photo of Angelina Jolie completes the book, clad in a lover’s white button-down shirt, an iconic image of post-bedroom romps in film since It Happened One Night in 1934.

Seduction may be for some a bit too academic for its own good.  Cox relies a lot on citations, footnotes and quotations that may have some readers thinking that they’re reading a FIT student’s senior thesis. Seduction does, however, take its own advice, and is a very attractive book to pick up, enticing the reader to flip through it and marvel as though it were a naughty aristocratic gentlemen spying through a filigree keyhole.