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Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes
An expert and intimate exploration of a life in clothes: their memories and stories, enchantments and spells.
A linen sheet, smooth with age. A box of buttons, mother-of-pearl and plastic, metal and glass, rattling and untethered. A hundred-year-old pin, forgotten in a hem. Fragile silks and fugitive dyes, fans and crinolines, and the faint mark on leather from a buckle now lost.
Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her working life. Down cool, dark corridors and in quiet store rooms, she and her colleagues care for, catalogue and conserve clothes centuries old, the inscrutable remnants of lives long lost to history; the commonplace or remarkable things that survive the bodies they once encircled or adorned.
In Patch Work, Wilcox deftly stitches 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 luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear: their stories, their secrets, their power to transform and disguise and acts as portals to our pasts; the ways in which they measure out our lives, our gains and losses, and the ways we use them to write our stories.
A linen sheet, smooth with age. A box of buttons, mother-of-pearl and plastic, metal and glass, rattling and untethered. A hundred-year-old pin, forgotten in a hem. Fragile silks and fugitive dyes, fans and crinolines, and the faint mark on leather from a buckle now lost.
Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her working life. Down cool, dark corridors and in quiet store rooms, she and her colleagues care for, catalogue and conserve clothes centuries old, the inscrutable remnants of lives long lost to history; the commonplace or remarkable things that survive the bodies they once encircled or adorned.
In Patch Work, Wilcox deftly stitches 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 luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear: their stories, their secrets, their power to transform and disguise and acts as portals to our pasts; the ways in which they measure out our lives, our gains and losses, and the ways we use them to write our stories.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2021
114 people are currently reading
1138 people want to read
About the author
Claire Wilcox
37 books26 followersFrom Wikipedia: Claire Wilcox (born 1954)[1] is senior curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum.[2] She received an honorary doctorate in art and design from Middlesex University in July 2017.[3] She sits on the editorial board of the journal Fashion Theory.[4] She is professor of fashion curation at the London College of Fashion. She won the 2021 PEN/Ackerley Prize for Patch Work.[5]
(Not to be confused with American economist https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
(Not to be confused with American economist https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 129 reviews
November 19, 2020
An expert and intimate exploration of a life in clothes: their memories and stories, enchantments and spells. A linen sheet, smooth with age. A box of buttons, mother-of-pearl and plastic, metal and glass, rattling and untethered. A hundred-year-old pin, forgotten in a hem. Fragile silks and fugitive dyes, fans and crinolines, and the faint mark on leather from a buckle now lost. Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her working life. Down cool, dark corridors and in quiet store rooms, she and her colleagues care for, catalogue and conserve clothes centuries old, the inscrutable remnants of lives long lost to history; the commonplace or remarkable things that survive the bodies they once encircled or adorned.
In Patch Work, Wilcox deftly stitches 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 luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear: their stories, their secrets, their power to transform and disguise and acts as portals to our pasts; the ways in which they measure out our lives, our gains and losses, and the ways we use them to write our stories. This is an exquisite, original and fascinating deep dive into an often neglected topic. Part memoir, part fashion critique, Patch Work is as richly woven as the fabrics and fads it portrays. An eminently readable and accessible book, this was a pleasure to enjoy.
In Patch Work, Wilcox deftly stitches 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 luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear: their stories, their secrets, their power to transform and disguise and acts as portals to our pasts; the ways in which they measure out our lives, our gains and losses, and the ways we use them to write our stories. This is an exquisite, original and fascinating deep dive into an often neglected topic. Part memoir, part fashion critique, Patch Work is as richly woven as the fabrics and fads it portrays. An eminently readable and accessible book, this was a pleasure to enjoy.
January 2, 2021
The “blurb” about this book grabbed my attention – I enjoy memoirs, personal histories, “hidden stories” & the like so I was intrigued by the promise of stories told through a box of buttons, a forgotten pin in a hem, a mark on leather … the fact that it was written by a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum surely meant this would be a glimpse behind the scenes, some stories of clothes within the collection – very exciting!
Unfortunately after the first chapter, I felt somewhat let down. The book is a miscellany of stories but the stories about the authors life were not actually very interesting, they were very superficial, there was little detail, they weren’t presented chronologically and any attempt at thematic grouping didn’t really flow. As so much is made of the fact that she works at the V&A, I expected so much more.
I think this is probably a classic example of a book that doesn’t work as an e-book. As a glossy coffee table tome with stunning pictures for somebody to dip in & out of it may work, but it’s not a book to read from. I also think that the “blurb” needs to be amended to reduce the focus on the V&A curator! If she ever writes a book more focussed on the V&A collection, the textiles, preservation, analysis etc I will be very interested as I did like her writing style!
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free via @ThePigeonHoleHQ. Whilst thanks go to the publisher for the opportunity to read it, all opinions are my own.
#Patchwork @ThePigeonholeHQ # BookReview
Unfortunately after the first chapter, I felt somewhat let down. The book is a miscellany of stories but the stories about the authors life were not actually very interesting, they were very superficial, there was little detail, they weren’t presented chronologically and any attempt at thematic grouping didn’t really flow. As so much is made of the fact that she works at the V&A, I expected so much more.
I think this is probably a classic example of a book that doesn’t work as an e-book. As a glossy coffee table tome with stunning pictures for somebody to dip in & out of it may work, but it’s not a book to read from. I also think that the “blurb” needs to be amended to reduce the focus on the V&A curator! If she ever writes a book more focussed on the V&A collection, the textiles, preservation, analysis etc I will be very interested as I did like her writing style!
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book free via @ThePigeonHoleHQ. Whilst thanks go to the publisher for the opportunity to read it, all opinions are my own.
#Patchwork @ThePigeonholeHQ # BookReview
December 30, 2020
What a disappointment.
December 16, 2020
A beautiful memoir but quite frustrating at times. It is a mixture of the author’s life working at the museum, mainly in Fashion at the V & A, interspersed with short vignettes about her family and life. Some of these were very moving and I must confess I found these more interesting than the museum stories, (though I particularly liked the part about Freda Kahlo which was quite heart-breaking). It’s very strange because I studied Fashion at The London College of Fashion in the 1970s so these extracts should have resonated more with me than they did.
The reason I found the book frustrating is because the family stories are not in chronological order and her friends and family members are not named. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what was happening.
But I think for me the main problem was that I am very busy at work and with Christmas, so I was a bit rushed. If I was reading on a sunny day in the garden, sipping a cocktail and listening to Classic FM, I would have enjoyed it more. However it is a beautifully written book, the language is poetic and descriptive. I think I may read it again one day when I have more time.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
The reason I found the book frustrating is because the family stories are not in chronological order and her friends and family members are not named. Sometimes I wasn’t sure what was happening.
But I think for me the main problem was that I am very busy at work and with Christmas, so I was a bit rushed. If I was reading on a sunny day in the garden, sipping a cocktail and listening to Classic FM, I would have enjoyed it more. However it is a beautifully written book, the language is poetic and descriptive. I think I may read it again one day when I have more time.
Many thanks to The Pigeonhole and my fellow Pigeons for making this such an enjoyable read.
May 15, 2023
According to the blurb for Patch Work - A Life Amongst Clothes, author Claire Wilcox has been employed as a curator for the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working career. Since visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2018, I've followed their social media channel and enjoy the behind the scenes curator videos on offer from Museum of London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
When I saw a curator from the V&A had penned a book about her work, I imagined I'd be able to delve further than these documentary videos to gain insight surrounding the ins and outs of restoration and exhibition work, stitched together with some fascinating history and interesting objects. I was curious to learn about the career process involved in her line of work, and the physical toll it takes on the lucky few permitted to touch these priceless objects rich with provenance.
That would be a fascinating book indeed, but this wasn't it. I wanted to learn more about the author's career as a curator, and instead I learned more about the author herself.
The tantalising chapter headings held promise - Kid Gloves; Tapestry; Mail Order; The Skirt; Silver Thread; Production Line; Wedding Suit; Dust - but rarely delivered the expertise and hands-on experience I was after.
Patch Work - A Life Amongst Clothes by Claire Wilcox is a memoir told in very short chapters threaded through with the tools of the author's trade as a senior curator. Listening to the audiobook, the content felt personal and very much a private project for her friends and family rather than a resource for readers interested in her work, the work of the V&A Museum, or those motivated to pursue a career in her field.
Recommended for readers of memoir only.
When I saw a curator from the V&A had penned a book about her work, I imagined I'd be able to delve further than these documentary videos to gain insight surrounding the ins and outs of restoration and exhibition work, stitched together with some fascinating history and interesting objects. I was curious to learn about the career process involved in her line of work, and the physical toll it takes on the lucky few permitted to touch these priceless objects rich with provenance.
That would be a fascinating book indeed, but this wasn't it. I wanted to learn more about the author's career as a curator, and instead I learned more about the author herself.
The tantalising chapter headings held promise - Kid Gloves; Tapestry; Mail Order; The Skirt; Silver Thread; Production Line; Wedding Suit; Dust - but rarely delivered the expertise and hands-on experience I was after.
Patch Work - A Life Amongst Clothes by Claire Wilcox is a memoir told in very short chapters threaded through with the tools of the author's trade as a senior curator. Listening to the audiobook, the content felt personal and very much a private project for her friends and family rather than a resource for readers interested in her work, the work of the V&A Museum, or those motivated to pursue a career in her field.
Recommended for readers of memoir only.
November 8, 2020
Patch Work by Claire Wilcox is an unusual memoir. The title is perfect, the book is made up of a series of vignettes stitched together to make a beautiful whole, much like the pieces that make up a patch work quilt, and since the author has worked as a curator in the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life, dealing with everything from top hats to medieval felt caps , fragile silks and yellowing linens, it seems wonderfully suited as a way to tell her story. We learn about how she grew up surrounded by the trappings of a seamstress, and how her mother made most of the family's clothes, from her own wedding suit to Claire's girlhood dresses , we follow her on her travels along the hippy trail to India , and even into her own journey into motherhood. These stories are woven into descriptions of her work as a curator and what that involves.
While I thought the writing had a beautiful lyrical quality, the book as a whole felt somewhat disjointed and was a little difficult to follow in places , especially since it did not seem to move in chronological order .
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.
While I thought the writing had a beautiful lyrical quality, the book as a whole felt somewhat disjointed and was a little difficult to follow in places , especially since it did not seem to move in chronological order .
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.
April 12, 2021
Patch Work is not what I expected although I had only read a short blurb about the book in a magazine. I thought there would be more descriptions of the museum curatorial work. The training and education involved to become an authority on historical garments. I thought I would learn something about textiles and preservation.
But the style of this author is to write in fragments of observations, sensory impressions, memory and feelings. I’m going to use a word I’ve never used before: it was twee. I’m sorry.
But the style of this author is to write in fragments of observations, sensory impressions, memory and feelings. I’m going to use a word I’ve never used before: it was twee. I’m sorry.
February 26, 2021
This book caught my eye with the description as I have always loved the V & A Museum and was interested to get a inside view of it. However, this was not what this book was. Instead, it was a series (or ‘patchwork’) of stories about the authors life. Because of this I found the book rather disjointed and difficult to read, which is a shame because I usually really enjoy the personal insights of autobiographies, but with this book nothing seemed to flow and I found this very frustrating.
March 16, 2022
An aptly named book made up of snippets of the author’s life.
Read
November 16, 2020An unconventional memoir as told through flash-nonfiction (I might have made that term up) in which Wilcox ruminates on memories and meaning weaved into clothing.
My Review: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...
My Review: https://curiousreaderr.wordpress.com/...
February 6, 2021
The prose is quite different, note like and interesting, but always rather allusive so there are a lot of times when things are merely hinted. The progress is roughly chronological but seems to become less so as the book proceeds. I eventually got frustrated with not really knowing exactly what was happening and so many threads left dangling.
August 12, 2022
rambling impressions. would have preferred more about the fabrics and cloth than the woman herself. Just not my cup of tea.
Read
April 30, 2023Though this book was not what I expected, I nevertheless enjoyed the tender vignettes which make up this nebulous memoir. As a sentimental-materialist I felt I deeply understood the passages prompted by particular objects, the memory of a specific object, or even just a sensory recollection.
I heard about this book (where, I do not specifically remember) as the memoir of a fashion curator and dress historian connected to one of the most influential institutions in Europe, and while some of the stories clearly take place in the museum, the V&A is but another hazy backdrop or minor character in what is a deeply personal body of writing. I expected - or, as a designer steeped in textile and dress history wanted - more professional reflections, but honestly I liked the material reality of what this book is so much to forgive it for what it is not.
I heard about this book (where, I do not specifically remember) as the memoir of a fashion curator and dress historian connected to one of the most influential institutions in Europe, and while some of the stories clearly take place in the museum, the V&A is but another hazy backdrop or minor character in what is a deeply personal body of writing. I expected - or, as a designer steeped in textile and dress history wanted - more professional reflections, but honestly I liked the material reality of what this book is so much to forgive it for what it is not.
May 29, 2021
hMMMm okay well this book got good reviews and it was SO well written but for me personalamente, I just felt a bit tired reading it. Like I would feel wide awake and full of beans but 4 pages in I would say I was lethargic. NEVERTHELESS I love the writing style, and it is such a creative idea to write a book like this that I’m sure if I wasn’t in that post exam state of mind I would have given 5 stars 💋💋
November 24, 2022
Patch Work is non-linear, told through vignettes of hours spent. The collection archives the piece-like nature of narrative in memoir form as if the author is archiving herself. Hours of quiet and alone, unorganized vacation, her mother’s sewing, father’s encouragement, contemplating fabric— the unbusy or uncurated work hours logged as most memorable.
A little boring, but such a gentle read. Memoir not for entertainment sake but for the act of preservation of personal history.
A little boring, but such a gentle read. Memoir not for entertainment sake but for the act of preservation of personal history.
January 18, 2023
A Beautiful tender book, personal yet relatable. Claire Wilcox moves through her very specific relationships not only to clothing but objects, homes people places.
The object act as a conduit for her to mine many deeply personal experiences and give us a rare glimpse into the archives of many great artist and icons who's artefacts have moved through the glass atriums of the V&A galleries.
Questions that arose while reading -
Moving through life we don outfits and possessions that we believe suit our specific narrative. Is this pretence flippant ephemerality or essential construction for existence.
What we leave behind, a legacy of objects how they take on our existence with ware and time.
With throw away consumerism is there ever a personal object, a relic or an artefact of you?
The object act as a conduit for her to mine many deeply personal experiences and give us a rare glimpse into the archives of many great artist and icons who's artefacts have moved through the glass atriums of the V&A galleries.
Questions that arose while reading -
Moving through life we don outfits and possessions that we believe suit our specific narrative. Is this pretence flippant ephemerality or essential construction for existence.
What we leave behind, a legacy of objects how they take on our existence with ware and time.
With throw away consumerism is there ever a personal object, a relic or an artefact of you?
March 11, 2023
Remarkable
August 23, 2021
A dry, boring monologue of dullness, several pages of drivel that I have no idea of it’s relation to the book begins what can be described as cat litter tray lining
March 7, 2023
A memoir of her life working with fabric, particularly restoration and maintenance at the V & A, interspersed with bits of her personal life, including a stillbirth and a very sick child. Charming and an easy read.
April 4, 2021
More autobiography than about her work. That's fine. Just not what I was interested in.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 17, 2020
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.
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.
December 6, 2020
Patch Work by Claire Wilcox is a collection of ultra-short memoir stories which decribe events in her life, from childhood, to motherhood, to being an art student, to working life, to experiencing the death of her parents. Wilcox is also a curator in Fashion in the Victoria & Albert museum and it was this that I was most interested in.
Unfortunately, I found the book quite frustrating to read as I wanted the author to return to textiles, curation and preservation of garments and these parts felt like very brief interludes in amongst the family stories.
The stories were also arranged non-chronologically and often did not clarify the names of the characters which I found needlessly obfuscatory. For instance, the author went to (I think) Vivienne Westwood's house, but I don't know exactly when or really why except that she had to help herself to some apple pie.
In summary, a patchwork book which I enjoyed in pieces. I might have enjoyed it more if I was expecting a personal memoir rather than an account of a working life.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.
Unfortunately, I found the book quite frustrating to read as I wanted the author to return to textiles, curation and preservation of garments and these parts felt like very brief interludes in amongst the family stories.
The stories were also arranged non-chronologically and often did not clarify the names of the characters which I found needlessly obfuscatory. For instance, the author went to (I think) Vivienne Westwood's house, but I don't know exactly when or really why except that she had to help herself to some apple pie.
In summary, a patchwork book which I enjoyed in pieces. I might have enjoyed it more if I was expecting a personal memoir rather than an account of a working life.
Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.
July 9, 2021
I was anxious to get this book, having read a very nice review. It is by the fashion curator at the V & A museum. There are vignettes about the museum and it’s collections. I particularly liked one about the breeches from a wedding outfit for a fisherman in 1902. When accepted by the museum the curator noted that “the tight gathers, which resemble ripples on a sandy beach after the tide has receded”, not your average curatorial description.
Interspersed with the bits about the collection are essays about the author’s life. I enjoyed “Memory Foam”, a piece about her elderly dog.
Somehow the book never found the right pacing for me.
Interspersed with the bits about the collection are essays about the author’s life. I enjoyed “Memory Foam”, a piece about her elderly dog.
Somehow the book never found the right pacing for me.
March 10, 2021
A beautiful book. I didn't know what to expect in the beginning, I'm still not sure what I got from it. The title should have been a clue. It is a life presented in slices. Moving back and forth and now that I look I can see the threads, one most important that the story hangs on, that the author's life was hung on. Touching and moving.
It made me think about parts of my own life, primarily in terms of clothes and textiles, something that I now realise is important.
It is a book with texture and depth that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
It made me think about parts of my own life, primarily in terms of clothes and textiles, something that I now realise is important.
It is a book with texture and depth that I thoroughly enjoyed reading.
December 14, 2020
I have just finished reading Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes by Claire Wilcox, stave by stave with The Pigeonhole. I will feel bereft tomorrow morning when I realise there will be no further staves and will miss the meandering snippets and patches of life I have so enjoyed. This wonderful book contained much that was familiar, as well as interesting facts and poignant anecdotes, written in a gentle and charming way.
April 24, 2025
Thank you Katie for giving this to me. Every chapter, every story was a delight. THIS is what I expect when I read a memoir.
Expect to be given this on your birthday.
Expect to be given this on your birthday.
February 4, 2023
Mixed. Wonderful writing. Some stories were really powerful. Others confusing. A few felt out of context.
May 17, 2021
Lovely and frustrating read. Wilcox is terribly clever and also touching in her careful construction of her life's garments - made up of memories of her seamstress mother, her haberdasher father, her encounters with fabric and artifice that becomes a lifelong obsession. She is good at showing how key encounters and acquisitions of clothing and accessories throughout her childhood, adolescence and young womanhood come to symbolize her development as both human and historian - most touchingly in her relationships with her parents and her children. The synecdoche of baby shoes, homemade dresses, a walking cane, a clutch bag represent not a linear timeline of Wilcox's life but a collection of the moments that took her from a London council flat and made her the woman she is today (and the Senior Curator of Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.) The book is a love letter to the V&A, even as Wilcox is deliberately humble about the enormous influence she wields in both the academic and commercial world of fashion, particularly after Savage Beauty, her groundbreaking show on Alexander McQueen. Wilcox is willing to be opaque about the identities - even the names - of those who figure in her autobiographical sketches, though really her tact seems a bit precious when we might divine she is talking about McQueen or Vivienne Westwood or annoying when she does not identify the curator who gave her the big chance at working for the V&A. What's with the secrecy, especially if Wilcox is not attempting a celebrity-ridden piece?
Her willingness to use photographs (not identified until the index at the back of the book) to blend with memoir, travelogue, history, and biography, and, for all we know, fiction, is downright Sebaldian and adds to the atmosphere. One senses the slippery nature of her writing that may or may not contain convenient truths is a bit more like Proust, particularly in its obsessive relationship with objects representing the individual, rather than Sebald's painful negotiations of places and trifles grappling with history. But what a compliment to Wilcox's lovely writing that it can remind the reader of either Sebald or Proust, a real achievement of style and substance.
Her willingness to use photographs (not identified until the index at the back of the book) to blend with memoir, travelogue, history, and biography, and, for all we know, fiction, is downright Sebaldian and adds to the atmosphere. One senses the slippery nature of her writing that may or may not contain convenient truths is a bit more like Proust, particularly in its obsessive relationship with objects representing the individual, rather than Sebald's painful negotiations of places and trifles grappling with history. But what a compliment to Wilcox's lovely writing that it can remind the reader of either Sebald or Proust, a real achievement of style and substance.
September 5, 2021
I enjoyed this book but was disappointed that it did not keep up the same energy and intrigue set up in the opening chapter. I have to admit I found it dull in places. One of the reasons for this is that it's so fragmentary - slipping forward and backward in time, mixing exhibits with autobiographical notes, with chapters titled 'Flannel', 'Purple Velvet', to 'Lustre' 'Slippage' and 'Mist. I got frustrated b the obtuseness of the random images, titles and content - I felt it was overly compilcated, arty for the sake of it and there didn't seem to be a narrative drive of the book - But others, including reviews such as the Guardian's Rachel Scott and Lisa Cohen's gave it rave reviews and LC comments
'But Wilcox’s accomplishments aren’t her focus here. Nor, for the most part, are her own clothes, though she describes deliciously the way a thrifty 1930s wedding dress, cut on the bias, ‘clung to my body like water’; pays tribute to a silk kimono that she wore ‘to shreds’ (the unstated opposite of the kind of garment that ends up in a museum) and remembers feeling ‘in a state of perfection’ wearing a tunic made by her mother. Rather, Patch Work is about the way memory and clothes compose each other, and the way death and curation haunt one another read that refusal as a salvo against the name as fetish and commodity, a refutation of the celebrity namedropping common to the fashion world and a way of asking us to look more closely at particular creations and her experiences of them. But the effect is also of another sort of insiderness, and I wonder about its use for less well-known figures, such as ‘the Keeper’, who is a role model. There is an abstracted – perhaps romantic – quality amid the precision; I sometimes wanted to know where I was, and when, even as I appreciated that patchwork is about adjacency, association and the retrieval of fragments that might otherwise be unvalued or lost'
This perceptive remark justifies the very things I don't like about the book - so, it just wasn't for me - However the prose is beautiful though a bit over egged on occasion.
'But Wilcox’s accomplishments aren’t her focus here. Nor, for the most part, are her own clothes, though she describes deliciously the way a thrifty 1930s wedding dress, cut on the bias, ‘clung to my body like water’; pays tribute to a silk kimono that she wore ‘to shreds’ (the unstated opposite of the kind of garment that ends up in a museum) and remembers feeling ‘in a state of perfection’ wearing a tunic made by her mother. Rather, Patch Work is about the way memory and clothes compose each other, and the way death and curation haunt one another read that refusal as a salvo against the name as fetish and commodity, a refutation of the celebrity namedropping common to the fashion world and a way of asking us to look more closely at particular creations and her experiences of them. But the effect is also of another sort of insiderness, and I wonder about its use for less well-known figures, such as ‘the Keeper’, who is a role model. There is an abstracted – perhaps romantic – quality amid the precision; I sometimes wanted to know where I was, and when, even as I appreciated that patchwork is about adjacency, association and the retrieval of fragments that might otherwise be unvalued or lost'
This perceptive remark justifies the very things I don't like about the book - so, it just wasn't for me - However the prose is beautiful though a bit over egged on occasion.
February 19, 2022
Claire Wilcox is the senior curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert museum in London. She was the co-curator of a show on Freda Kahlo that included Kahlo's clothing--more clothing than paintings, and presented the argument that Kahlo's most significant work of art was her body as dressed for presentation to outsiders, an embodied representation of Mexico. I saw this show at the Brooklyn museum, and was won over by the way the show made the argument. It helped me reimagine what a fashion curator might do. The show is not mentioned in this book, yet this book is another step, also enlarging my understanding how we might think about people's relation to things. It is a kind of memoir, composed of twenty one sections, each with three to five short essays. It is a story of a life told in terms of material culture. Many of them are actually about textiles, although some are about living spaces, places where Wilcox has lived, or stayed, some for short vacations. Fabrics and surfaces are richly described; somehow affect is also conveyed. The essays add up to a life story, although not a tightly woven one. I was surprised to find at the end of the book the list of the photographs. There are 30 of them paced throughout the book. They are soft, grey illustrations, most not taking up a whole page. Many are of fabrics and material objects from the museum collection, although a few are family pictures. In some ways, presented in this fragmentary way, they are shadows of an elusive reality. Maybe it can't quite be captured, rendering materiality less substantial than we sometimes like to think. Yet, as I read the book, a few essays in a sitting, I thought about the objects or places she had just held out for me, contemplating the attachments we form to people and things, and how these bits and pieces draw us in. Some people theorize about the ways that objects have agency; Wilcox does not cite any of this work, but perhaps the book makes a subtle contribution to that conversation.
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