The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets of a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe

Strasdin, Kate ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7617-9153 (2023) The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets of a Victorian Woman's Wardrobe. Chatto & Windus, London. ISBN 9781784743819

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Abstract / Summary

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.

Item Type:	Book
ISBN:	9781784743819
Subjects:	Fashion & Textiles > Fashion Fashion & Textiles History > International
Courses by Department:	The Fashion & Textiles Institute > Fashion Design
Depositing User:	Kate Strasdin
Date Deposited:	12 Dec 2023 10:35
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2023 10:35
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/5301

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