Fabric
Victoria Finlay
Ratgeber / Kreatives Gestalten
Beschreibung
'Subtle, compendious and rich' - James McConnachie, The Sunday Times
'Dazzling ... Finlay's adventures, vividly recounted, make enthralling reading ... This book is equally an inspiration and an education' - Bel Mooney, Daily Mail
'A gorgeous adventure through the history of cloth' - Stylist
The Sunday Times best paperbacks of 2022
Bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe in a vibrant exploration of cloth through the ages. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama. And through it all she uncovers the hidden histories of fabric: how and why people have made it, worn it, invented it and made symbols of it
Interlaced with Victoria's own story of grief and recovery, Fabric is a lush patchwork of travel, history, memoir and culture - an unforgettable look into how we have made fabric, and how it has made us.
Rezensionen
Enthralling and sumptuously spun narrative history of how and why people around the world have made, used and worn different kinds of fabric. Beginning her research shortly after the death of her parents, Finlay finds her own story of love and grief entwined in the threads too, making for a fine blend indeed
There's something in this wonderfully packed haberdasher's shop for every reader ... Victoria Finlay provides a closely woven warp and weft of answers to questions we never thought to ask, and the pictures in her intricate tapestry are dazzling. An intrepid traveller whose best-selling books already explored the magical worlds of colour and of jewels, she now turns her infinitely curious mind to fabric ... All plans had to be put on hold as the grieving daughter felt "lost and fractured into small pieces". Those "pieces"
Highly personal and tactile ... fascinating. Subtle, compendious and rich, if this was just a cultural history of fabric it would be a fine piece of work. But Finlay weaves another story into the book: she is grieving for her mother. Sometimes the joins between the two narratives feel a little raw - but cleverly so. More often the book acquires an extra dimension; the effect that springs to mind is the strange iridescence of that twin-coloured silk you sometimes find as the lining of a suit jacket... This book recovers that relatively silenced or at least sidelined history (of women). It is an emotive and serious work of what you might call history on the distaff side.
Subtle, compendious and rich ... an emotive and serious work of what you might call history on the distaff side
Equally an inspiration and an education
A highly companionable guide, adventurous and romantic
At a moment when alarming statistics regarding textile waste have triggered calls for sustainability within the fashion industry, Finlay takes the reader on a journey of personal discovery that spans the breadth of the globe over the course of centuries ... with deft cultural consciousness. Part historical survey, part memoir and part travelogue, "Fabric" follows Finlay as she discovers the secrets behind each material's history with such wonderment - such reverence - that one cannot help believing in the "hidden magic"
A gorgeous adventure through the history of cloth weaving together disparate countries and stories in the most fascinating (and personal) of ways
Poetically profound
This is a rare and wonderful book - a model of erudition and charm, the writing elegant and precise, and with at least one new and fascinating revelation on every single page.
Her curiosity is inexhaustible, her reading wide, and her writing style a delight
Praise for Victoria Finlay
Exuberant
I am wildly impressed by the depth of her research and the stories she finds
I loved Fabric ... a compelling combination of personal memoir and deeply researched facts, it would make a terrific Christmas present!
Kundenbewertungen
fashion and textile museum, silk, yarn, V&A, material, virginia postrel the fabric of civilization, lisa woollett rag and bone, William Morris, raynor winn the salt path, esther rutter this golden fleece, lucy adlington, Harris Tweed, history of clothes, weaving, clare hunter threads of life a history of the world through the eye of a needle, serena dyer material lives, helen macdonald h is for hawk, shahidha bari dressed the secret life of clothes, travel memoir, claire wilcox patch work a life amongst clothes, kassia st clair the golden thread, merino wool, grief memoir, art and design, dress, rozsika parker the subversive stitch, social history, fashion, the secret lives of colour, anthropology, textiles