Shojo Fashion Manga Art School Year 2 book review

This is the follow up to the brilliant shojo fashion- manga art school. It focuses on modern looks and has been split into 8 distinct sections based on significant events and social environments.

The first section- Around the home looks at different types of everyday wear and gets quite specific on things like sleeves, collars and feminine necklines. Other interesting aspects of this section include maternity wear, baby shoes and drawing dirt on clothes.

Section 2-Hanging out, sort of expands on the casual wear theme but this time features character reference based on social situations like First date and Going steady.

In section 3 the clothing style becomes more glamorous as we go to the prom. Standout parts of this section are applying different beaded patterns to a dress and layering up a suit. It even gives an illustrated step by step guide to tying a tie.

Section 4 is all about weddings and features different styles of dresses as well as suits for all ages and bridesmaid dresses.

Section 5 focuses on drawing different styles of school uniform as well as clothing for sports and cheer squads.

In section 6 we get to see different types of work clothes relating to many different types of jobs. Unfortunately, as the book progresses the amount of step by step guides seem to reduce and we are just given finished references. This runs through to section 7 which looks at different types of sportswear and the book finishes off with seasonal clothing featuring items of swimwear, sunglasses and padded fabrics.

Although I found this book quite useful it didn’t seem to live up to its predecessor. I feel like it tries to cram too much different content into it covering all possible bases of a particular type of clothing but doesn’t feature enough step by step lessons. The first four sections could have been greatly expanded to fill the book and the final four, done more thoroughly could have another book in their own right. Obviously with the subject matter this book does seem to be aimed at teenagers but is very useful for anybody who wishes to illustrate people of that age bracket.