Tweed

Reviews / Votes

For textile history enthusiasts, or weavers of tweed yardage pondering the background to the iconic cloth ... this book will be if great interest ... By the final chapters you will have gained a fascinating insight into this industry. * The Journal for Weavers, Spinners & Dyers * Anderson's excellent book Tweed offers a detailed examination of the history of tweed as both fabric and garment. In so doing she unpacks some of the wideranging social and cultural themes that are hinted at in the exchange between Lord Peter Wimsey and his manservant Bunter ... an excellent overview of a complex subject, demonstrating the value of placing one fabric at the centre of a rich multi-disciplinary enquiry. * Journal of Design History * This book provides a model of how to write a biography of a fabric, which through developing so many unexpected links and thought-provoking digressions leaves the reader with an entirely new perspective on the subject. * Costume * Tweed delivers coherent and precise conclusions that are testament to the thorough research that it contains ... an excellent and much-needed introduction to the topic that lays a strong foundation for other channels of research and interrogation of this fascinating textile. * Journal of Dress History * The scope and quality of the research within Tweed is excellent. The author provides a nuanced account of this universally recognized but often misunderstood and under-researched textile, and firmly situates it within the context of broader economic, social and cultural histories. -- Mairi MacKenzie, Research Fellow, Fashion and Textiles, School of Design, The Glasgow School of Art, UK Expansive and detailed, Fiona Anderson's Tweed offers a rigorous history of this important textile. Drawing on new research, it challenges the myths and sets its subject within its technical, cultural, and aesthetic contexts, pulling together questions of production, consumption and reception in a complex and satisfying weave of ideas. -- Professor Christopher Breward, Principal of Edinburgh College of Art, UK. From its beginnings in coarse woolen shepherd's checks to its global success in luxury markets, Fiona Anderson digs deep into the life of tweed - its history, myths, meanings, design, technical characteristics, and consumption. The study considers tweed from a broad perspective of innovation and fashion change, aided largely by a material culture approach. The relationship of tweed to class, gender, national identities and traditions, is part of the story. Readers will want to know more about these timeless fabrics that have romantic (and other) meanings long before they are fashioned into clothes. -- Patricia A. Cunningham, The Ohio State University, USA Readers interested in the history of textiles will be intrigued to learn about the relationship of tweed to the artistic Romantic movement-which butted against industrialism and urbanism-and how this rural fabric became associated with idealized imperialism, travel, and foreign exoticism. -- B. B. Chico * Regis University *