Phoenix has made his love of kitsch into something of a full-time career he is author and editor of coffee-table books on mid-century American art, fashion, transportation and architecture.
By the time the heel came back into fashion, in the mid-19th Century, photography was transforming the way that fashions - and the female self-image - were constructed.
In it he reminds us that, between the mid-17th century and World War I, French was the universal language of diplomacy, culture and fashion and that an ability to read and speak it was essential to anyone claiming to be educated.