| Here’s publisher, Manchester University Press, with more about the book:
‘Pioneering women were at the heart of modernism. In What the dresses know, Sophie Oliver offers a new account of their radical experiments and extraordinary lives, told through the clothes they made and wore.
‘From a dress Vanessa Bell rescued from the London Blitz to Frida Kahlo’s huipiles and a waistcoat embroidered for Gertrude Stein by Alice B. Toklas, these special objects tell a story of artists seeking transformation. But getting dressed is rarely straightforward. Modernist women used clothes to think through the contradictions of the modern world: the inequalities of industrialisation, the terrible conformities demanded by fascism and racism and the call of feminists, socialists and avant-gardists to act differently and take up new forms of art.
‘What the dresses know is an exhilarating account of women’s bold attempts to make history during years of tumultuous change. A distinctive new voice in cultural criticism, Oliver uses clothes to explore the challenges modernist women faced – and to understand her own impulses in writing about them.’
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‘This bold, sensitive and beautifully written book probes the seams where art and life collide, exploring the material realities – and imaginative possibilities – revealed by the intriguing clothes of these fascinating modernist women.’ Francesca Wade, author of Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife
‘Sophie Oliver not only writes brilliantly about the history of garments, she writes about the bodies in them and the narratives that made and unmade them, dressed and undressed them. This is an essential work of scholarship and insight and heart and care.’ Hilton Als, author of The Women
‘Extraordinary, profound and inspiring… every chapter felt like a form of magic.’ Claire Wilcox, author of Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes
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Sophie Oliver is a critic, curator and academic at the University of Liverpool, where she teaches modernism and feminism. An AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker, she writes for the TLS, Literary Review and Art Review and has curated exhibitions at the British Library, the National Poetry Library and the Harry Ransom Center.
Sian Norris is a writer and journalist. Her work has appeared in The Times, Guardian, Observer, i news, and openDemocracy. She is the author of Bodies Under Siege: how the far right attack on reproductive rights went global. |
