The hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's life - from family and friends to industry and Empire - told through her unique textile scrapbook.
'Irresistable' The Times
'The story of a singular woman... Kate Strasdin's forensic detective work has finally let Mrs Sykes - and her book - speak again' JUDITH FLANDERSIn 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding dayCollecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of her life and times. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes.
Nearly two hundred years later, the diary fell into the hands of Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian and museum curatorStrasdin spent the next six years unravelling the secrets contained within the album's pages.
Piece by piece, she charts Anne's journey from the mills of Lancashire to the port of Singapore before tracing her return to England in later years. Fragments of cloth become windows into Victorian life: pirates in Borneo, the complicated etiquette of mourning, poisonous dyes, the British Empire in full swing, rioting over working conditions and the terrible human cost of Britain's cotton industry.
This is life writing that celebrates ordinary people: the hidden figures, the participants in everyday lifeThrough the evidence of waistcoats, ball gowns and mourning outfits, Strasdin lays bare the whole of human experience in the most intimate of mediums: the clothes we choose to wear.
'An extraordinarily rich record of middle-class Victorian life.. [a] fascinating book' Guardian
| Format |
Häftad |
| Omfång |
320 sidor |
| Språk |
Engelska |
| Förlag |
Vintage Publishing |
| Utgivningsdatum |
2024-02-22 |
| ISBN |
9781529920819 |
