Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes

After many years dedicated to the study of fashion, Claire Wilcox steps into the archive of memory and in this subtle, magnetic book she deftly stitches together the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of a 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 Victorian nightdress, a button box, a pin hidden in a seam. Through the eyes of a curator, we see how the stories and 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.