Happy New Year to all our wonderful Caring for Textiles readers! We hope the start of this year brings you joy, creativity, and lots of inspiration in your textile journeys.
At Caring for Textiles, we swap books and talk about them as we stitch.
Here are some of our favorite textile-tomes from the last 4 years. Here’s to another year of sharing marvelous inspirational textile books!
In case you missed it, we wrote a blog in 2021 about some of our favorite books
(Link to previous book blog: https://www.caringfortextiles.com/textilebooks/ )
Kaitlyn's Picks:
By Her Own Design: A Novel of Anne Lowe, Fashion Designer to the Social Register, Piper Huguley
I had the pleasure of attending author Piper Huguley’s book talk in the fall of 2022 where I was first introduced to her captivating work of fiction about the life of Ann Lowe. Hugley’s fiction approach brings Lowe’s story to life in a way that many academic non-fiction works leave dry. Lowe, a Black woman and grand-daughter of slaves learns to sew at a very early age, with training from her talented mother and grandmother. She experiences racial prejudice throughout her life but none the less becomes the secret go-to designer of America’s wealthy society ladies. Today Lowe is finally receiving the recognition she deserves as one of the most important American fashion designers, most notably the designer of Jackie Kennedy’s wedding gown which she never received credit in the press for designing and producing. Once opened, I could not put this book down!
A side note; Lowe’s designs were exhibited in 2023 at Winterthur Museum in the largest exhibit of Anne’s work to date, Anne Lowe: American Couturier.
Real Clothes, Real Lives: 200 Years of What Women Wore (Smith College Historic Clothing Collection), Kiki Smith
For the past 4 years, the Caring for Textiles studio has had the pleasure of hosting a visit from a group of Smith College students who come to DC for a semester of internships with the Smithsonian. With Smith College on my radar, I became aware of the college’s very unique and important collection of ordinary women’s daily clothing. The collection spans from 1800 to the present and includes over 3000 objects. This book shares some of the highlights from the collection, including great photographs. If any of our dear blog readers are in the New York City area, an outstanding selection of the collection is on display at the New York Historical Society in an exhibit of the same title as the book. The exhibit will remain up until June 2025.
Only the Clothes on Her Back: Clothing & the Hidden History of Power in the 19th-Century United States, Laura F. Edwards
Edwards explores the various ways that textiles gave women and people without rights economic power by simply being one of the very few material goods they were allowed ownership of. Putting today’s fast fashion culture aside, textiles historically possessed great monetary value. Her extensive and comprehensive research makes this book a fascinating and memorable read.
What Shall I Wear?: The What, Where, When, and How Much of Fashion (New Edition), Claire McCardell
One of my highlights of 2023 was visiting the Maryland Center for History and Culture to see their exhibit Claire/McCardell. Claire McCardell, a Maryland native is credited with creating easy to wear, casual, and comfortable women’s sportswear. This exhibit did not have a catalogue, which I often purchase when available. I did however purchase this new edition of her book What Shall I Wear?, originally published in 1956. Though reportedly ghost written, the book remains an enjoyable read and a little time capsule from the time period.
Julia’s picks:
All That She Carried, The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, A Black Family Keepsake, Tiya Miles, Random House, NY, 2021.
My beloved MPS high school advisor, Mrs. Ann Smith, called me during the pandemic, excitedly, to tell me that I must read this book. Thank you Ann Smith – this book enriched my life more than any other textile book. My copy is fully dog-eared, scribbled in, read 3 times, and has taken me in extraordinary directions in my own professional and personal life. Dove tailing with my own work to conserve the clothing of victims of genocides in Rwanda and Cambodia, author Miles’s historical, sociological and deeply emotional explorations into this one textile bag, opened my eyes and affirmed for me that clothing and textiles carry deeply imbedded stories and affirmations of life, trauma and truth, that necessitate the sensitive work of care, listening and preservation. And this is what I do.
Ashley’s story, embroidered onto a cotton sack, is carefully unearthed, explored ‘across the grain’, teasing out traces of individual and collective history over time. It is a story of slavery in America; a tactile tale of resilience, rebellion and compassion.
Rubelli: A Story of Silk in Venice
Marsilio, text by Irene Favaretto, 2011
Rarely does a paper book look and feel like a textile, and in this case, silk brocades! This is the story of the Rubelli family, whose company founded in the 18th c, remains in the family, and produces Venetian-cultural fabrics of extraordinary quality and authenticity. It is a story of family preserving history and culture, and of the complex technology of these wovens.
“The Rubelli family, (is) as closely woven as a complex armoured brocade, protected by the carapace of the weave and the flexibility of the yarn…….the leader of the house as fearless as a metallic double weave and as wise as old decaying velvets…”
The book is a caravan of colors; a beauty of a book to gaze into, and feel the centuries of textile technologies that are alive, vital and exquisite.
African Textiles, Clarke, Morago, Fee, Abbeville Press, 2024
This splendid rich volume explores the crossroads of trade, colonialism, wealth, poverty, skill and imagination. It is a journey though African villages meeting weavers, dyers, embroiderers and makers. The book honors the great textile traditions and roots of African masters, and centers it in the present and contemporary as well. It’s very special to me, as my long time colleague and friend, Dr Sarah Fee, wrote the section on East Africa. Sarah and I worked together in Madagascar in the early 2000’s rescuing, conserving, and preparing an exhibition of long lost ‘lamba’ for the museum in Antananarivo. The text flows; it is storytelling, precise and full of life. Beautifully illustrated, with full pages of a woven stripe or supplementary weft pattern, with the textile etched into the pages. It is a book to sit with in the evenings and travel with.
Pattern & Paradox, The Quilts of Amish Women, Smucker, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2024
Yes I am biased, as I worked on this collection of exquisite quilts for 3 years, culminating in the exhibition of 50 quilts in 2024. If you missed the show, the catalog conveys the stories and background of each quilt, the fabrics, methods, and daily life of the Amish makers, and provides absolutely gorgeous images and details of the quilts. It is the only catalog I have ever read aloud to my husband…so that is how readable it is. (CFT wrote a blog about the show, see blog archives)
Threads of Life, Claire Hunter, Abrams Press, NY, 2019
To read this book is to ‘discover a thread of self’
Unknown, power, frailty, captivity, identity, connection, protest, protect, journey, loss, community, value, art, work, voice, hand……..
Broken into chapters of life themes, the book is anecdotal, weaving in Hunter’s own life working with the needle and as an activist banner maker and historian. She inspires us to be proud of sewing and of our ancestors. You will dream about textiles when you read this book.
Annabel's Picks:
Annabel says: Unfortunately, haven’t read a ton of textile books this year (oops!). One I did read that I enjoyed was Worn by Sofi Thanhauser.
A great intro read for those looking for a broad intro to textiles! I adore the non-linear structure of this book. Instead of by time period, the book is divided by material: cotton, linen, silk, synthetics, and wool. An excellent description of humanity’s downfall into fast-fashion loops and the pockets of resistance throughout the world. For those interested in the history of underwear chapter 2 is a great resource! For those more experienced in fashion history research will probably find this book a bit too tedious.
Bella's Picks:
The Age of Homespun: Objects and Stories in the Creation of the American Myth, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Random House
I love this book because each chapter explores the story of different objects using related primary sources, like the owner’s diaries, maps, and artworks. It is a great resource for those interested in preindustrial American domestic arts and artifacts. It isn’t strictly textiles, but each chapter does a great job of weaving the story of the handmade object with greater narratives of American colonial life, such as gender, race, class, colonialism, and war. This is a highly researched yet still pretty approachable book- I would take your time with it, giving each chapter time time to settle in your brain.
The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, Virginia Postrel, Basic Books
This book was one of the first I read when I considered entering the field of fashion and textile studies, because I began in archaeology. This book starts at the very beginning, with ancient civilization, and uses archaeological evidence to back up finds which was particularly appealing to me. Each chapter acts as a zoom out from the previous: starting with fiber, then thread, then cloth, before tackling the interconnected web of people involved in textiles trade and consumption. This is an extremely approachable book, and is a wonderful overview of how textiles have brought us from the prehistoric past to the modern present.
Thread of Power: Lace from the Textilmuseum St. Gallen, Ed Emma Cormack and Michele Majer, Bard Graduate Center
This beast of a volume is an exhibition catalog and compilation of scholarly essays all about one very specific type of textile: lace. With many full-page, full color photographs of lace objects and relevant artworks, it is both a beautiful coffee table book as well as an invaluable resource to anyone interested in lace production, trade, consumption, and how it functioned as a marker of power. This isn’t a guide to identifying lace; however it has many wonderful examples of different types from around the world.
Katherine's Picks:
Dolly Parton: Behind the Seams, Dolly Parton
Here is one book that I love that I purchased last winter. Dolly writes about her personal archive and what the pieces mean to her and the time/occasion the costume was worn. It’s sweet, personal witty, and fun to read her take on her costumes, the designers and phases of her career.
All photos Caring for Textiles.
Thank you for your reviews. A welcome escape from the constant politics of Washington! It reminds us that there are interesting topics to explore in our textile world. I should read more of these books.
Love this!
Without a doubt, a fabulous list ! Thanks.