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Patch Work - Claire Wilcox

 


Description

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.

Review

I love fashion, sewing and the V&A - so I was delighted to read this book. What I wasn't expecting from the author was the exceptionally beautiful writing. I do hope Claire goes onto write more as she is very talented.

The book begins with a personal recollection of life behind the scenes at the V&A and I was hooked straight in. Not all the chapters relate to the V&A. Some are snapshots of the authors life from early on to present day. Interspersed with photographs, some of items and others are personal ones. The recollections are in no particular order, and because of this you can easily dip in and out as you wish.

I just loved being able to read about how they did the audit at the V&A.  Coming across items labelled '99 for the year 1899, with no thought for future years bearing the date '99!. Reading about the thought process behind organising an exhibition, and that you may pass curators in the corridors transporting precious items, as there are no private tunnels. The day they were sent home while a specialist in a white boiler suit and mask had to be called in to isolate a box of medieval leather shoes, in case they were from a plague pit. Just fascinating.

Even if you don't care for sewing or the V&A this book is a great recollection of times gone by, particularly the early 1960s. Although it predates me some of the lines rang so true for me, such as her drinking from a green cup and saucer in the staff canteen - I remember that crockery so well.

This book is a keeper and one to be read again and again. As to sink into it's pages and be delighted by the author's poetic use of words for the precious but evenly the everyday, is just fabulous. 

My thanks to Pigeonhole for sending the daily staves to enable me to read this book.

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