Book review: Tomboy Style

How would I describe my style? That probably changes from day to day, but a tomboy? Never. I don't own a pair of jeans for starters, and I'm overly fond of florals.

Somehow, despite those odds, my favourite style inspiration pics consistently come from the Tomboy Style blog: beautiful, feisty, stylish women who make me want to (for a few minutes anyway) scrub my face of make-up and hang-up my frocks.

Like all the best blogs, that site now has its very own book, Tomboy Style. This volume plays up on the best bit of the site with 128 pages of inspirational images. Think you can define a tomboy? The author, Lizzie Garrett Mettler, seems to have done a scientific study of them, dividing them into different types.

So the 'Sophisticate' type includes Chanel and Jane Birkin, as well as Diane Keaton and Charlotte Rampling, as pictured in this spread from the book...

...while in the 'Naturalist' type, you get Audrey Hepburn and musician Nicki Bluhm.

The 'adventuress' type is particularly inspiring with go-getting women like Lee Miller and Amelia Earhart rubbing well-dressed shoulders. 

Although I've picked some of the famous people who appear in the book, some of my favourite images feature unnamed women: the 'prep' section is full of fascinating pictures of American colleges in the 1940s and 50s. 

I can see me flicking back through this book over and over again and enjoying a new image each time. I do have one major bugbear with it though: there's no proper captions. Some images get a short paragraph but, for the majority of the photos, to find out either who the image is of, roughly when and where it was taken or who took it, you have to wade through the dense picture credits at the back of the book. Unnecessarily tedious. 

I also think it's slightly overpriced for what it is. It's meant to sell for £22.50 but Amazon are currently selling it for £14.62 which, for me, is much nearer the mark. Give it to your best friend, your mum or have fun keeping it all to yourself.