Patch Work
A Life Amongst Clothes
1st Edition
Published on 12. November 2020
288 pages
978-1-5266-1438-4 (ISBN)
Description
A TELEGRAPH BOOK OF THE YEAR
'I am overwhelmed by this book. It is an absolute masterpiece. A book of such beauty and profundity, of such poetry in its emotion and observation ... I found my sense of life transformed by her writing as I often find it transformed after the exhibition of a great artist' LAURA CUMMING
Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she steps into the archive of memory, deftly stitching together her dedicated study of fashion with the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of her own silk kimono, her memoir unfolds in spare, luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear.
In a series of intimate and compelling close-ups, Wilcox tugs on the threads that make up the fabric of our lives: a cardigan worn by a child, a mother's button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through the eye of a curator, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories.
'I am overwhelmed by this book. It is an absolute masterpiece. A book of such beauty and profundity, of such poetry in its emotion and observation ... I found my sense of life transformed by her writing as I often find it transformed after the exhibition of a great artist' LAURA CUMMING
Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she steps into the archive of memory, deftly stitching together her dedicated study of fashion with the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of her own silk kimono, her memoir unfolds in spare, luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear.
In a series of intimate and compelling close-ups, Wilcox tugs on the threads that make up the fabric of our lives: a cardigan worn by a child, a mother's button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through the eye of a curator, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories.
More details
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
ISBN-13
978-1-5266-1438-4 (9781526614384)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
05/2021
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€14.00
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Book
11/2020
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
€41.03
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Person
Claire Wilcox has been Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A since 2004, where she has curated exhibitions including Radical Fashion, The Art and Craft of Gianni Versace, Vivienne Westwood, The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and, as co-curator, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, and instigated Fashion in Motion (live catwalk events in the museum) in 1999. She is Professor in Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion and is on the editorial board of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. She lives in South London.
Content
- Cover
- Halftitle Page
- Title Page
- CONTENTS
- One PRELUDE
- Kid Gloves
- Two BEGINNING
- Night Clothes
- The Airing Cupboard
- The Apron
- Sheets
- Three BRINK
- Ribbon
- Bias
- Yellow Pages
- The Silk Road
- Four VERDANT
- Forsythia
- Hair
- Seeing
- Kimono
- Tapestry
- Purple Velvet
- Five STOREROOM
- Mail Order
- Thread-counter
- The Skirt
- Ladder
- Six CATCH
- The Cat
- Keeper
- Silver Thread
- Seven UNBOUND
- Life Model
- The Cot Quilt
- Counterpane
- Eight ENTWINED
- Lustre
- Hourglass
- Bound
- Nine LOVE
- Island
- Overdressed
- Flannel
- Fairy Wings
- Ten GATHER
- Tight Socks
- Red Shoes
- The Gown
- Arrangement
- Conditioned
- Eleven SENSATE
- Touched
- Mimesis
- Fashioned
- Twelve CURATOR
- Wadding
- Production Line
- Apple Pie
- Foil
- Too Late
- Thirteen SEAM
- The Pram
- Dressmaking
- Wedding Suit
- The West Wind
- Fourteen LOSS
- Emails
- Recovered
- Canvas
- The Runner
- Fifteen DUSK
- Foot-sure
- Imprint
- Overcast
- Gothic
- Sixteen IMMERSION
- Lost
- Watermark
- Tide
- Memory Foam
- Seventeen MIST
- Lungs
- The Watcher
- Harbour
- Eighteen ARCHIVE
- Investment
- Elysium
- Confined
- Nineteen HOME
- Drip-dry
- Intact
- The Museum
- Slippage
- Twenty VERTIGO
- The Clothes Moth
- Dust
- Safety Curtain
- Margin
- Twenty-one NOCTURNE
- Red Gloves
- Weeds
- The Committee of Rearrangement
- Draw the Curtains
- Acknowledgements
- eCopyright
