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 FLANDERS

In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting 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 curator. Strasdin 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 life. Through 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

About the Author

Kate Strasdin is a dress historian who has been fascinated by old clothes since she was a child. She is a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Falmouth University and is a freelance consultant for dress and textile exhibitions. She has appeared on The Great British Sewing Bee as an expert.

In 2016 she was given an anonymous album full of annotated dress swatches that had been kept in a trunk for over fifty years, its original keeper unknown. She spent the next six years unlocking its secrets.

She lives in Devon with her husband and two children.

Reviews
Strasdin's painstaking detective work has uncovered many of the fascinating insights behind the fabric swatches contained in this unusual collection * Sunday Times *
Snippets of fabric, snippets of biographical detail, snippets of historical evidence - this is a book entirely made up of snippets and I found it irresistible * Ysenda Maxtone Graham, The Times *
'[A] questing and poignant social history' * Hephzibah Anderson, The Observer *
An extraordinarily rich record of middle-class Victorian life, both at home and abroad... [a] fascinating book * Guardian *
This is a wonderful book! The life of a woman, a time and an industry, woven, like cloth, into something unique and beguiling. A treat for the curious reader * Pip Williams, author of The Dictionary of Lost Words *



Book Information
ISBN 9781784743819
Author Kate Strasdin
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Chatto & Windus
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 529g
Dimensions(mm) 222mm * 162mm * 31mm