cover image Manners: Always Gracious, Sometimes Irreverent

Manners: Always Gracious, Sometimes Irreverent

Kate Spade. Simon & Schuster, $20 (96pp) ISBN 978-0-7432-5066-5

Fashion designer Spade has become a sort of style icon of the new millennium. First it was her ubiquitous handbags, then it was shoes, next came stationery and now she's telling us how to pen a thank-you note, what to pack for a beach bonfire and why a summer rainstorm calls for capri pants and flip-flops. This trio of ""small books"" is targeted squarely at the put-together woman (or the woman who wishes she were put-together). Each book mixes chatty but straight-ahead prose with cute line drawings. Spade's presence is evident throughout, between her personal anecdotes (in Occasions, she lets on, ""One of my favorite things to do is shop flea markets, wherever I am"") and the charming sketches of women sporting sparkly but demure shoes. While united in theme i.e., the modern woman embracing tradition, grace and old-fashioned beauty the books each have their own niche. Style mainly addresses what-to-wear issues and reads like an abridged version of the recently published style guides from Lucky and InStyle magazines. Occasions focuses on entertaining from cocktail parties to holiday dinners. And Manners covers such subjects as artful conversation and re-gifting. Style is probably the strongest of the three, as it's the subject on which Spade has the greatest authority. But Occasions and Manners are solid, too, if not exactly groundbreaking (they brim with grandmotherly advice, with a bit of Letitia Baldrige's modern etiquette thrown in). Taken together, the books should please hostesses and would-be Marthas of all ages. (Apr.) Forecast: This collection should take off, thanks to Spade's name, planned author appearances at her retail stores, a direct mail campaign to the company's 100,000-plus name mailing list, TV radio and print publicity and a tie-in to the launch of Spade's new ""at home"" collection.