Women in Clothes
Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton
Language: English
Pages: 528
ISBN: 0399166564
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Women in Clothes is a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities—famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old—on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.
It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations.
Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, or function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us. Women in Clothes embraces the complexity of women’s style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.
grandfather and wearing glasses. My mom’s side of the family is Mennonite. The kids in this picture grew up on a dairy farm in North Dakota. Aunt Libby told me that they weren’t allowed to wear jewelry, yet she wanted some kind of decoration, so she faked having bad eyes until my grandparents got her some glasses. She’d sit there squinting at her book going, “Uhhh, uhhh, I can’t see.” She told me, “I wanted glasses so badly! They were like jewelry!” So when I look at this picture, I see my aunt,
Humidity made hair frizzy and slightly rough around the face and in the back (“the kitchen”). Light hair cream and quick, light strokes with a hot comb were needed. Nappy hair, stage one, required heavy hair cream daily and regular hot comb use. Usually did not grow past the shoulders. Nappy hair, stage two, required applications of hair cream and constant hot comb use. Usually did not grow past the middle of the neck. 4 Obtrusive behinds refused to slip into sheath dresses, subside and stay
through my life, but I can’t seem to change. The jean jacket always comes out, the lipstick wiped off, heels switched for flats. CARRIE MURPHY My Italian grandmother was incredibly stylish, even into her eighties. Imagine a thinner, smaller, less overtly sexy Raquel Welch. She was glamorous but approachable, with a look wholly her own. If there was something I wanted to keep, I’d ask her, and she always let me have it. HIKARI YOKOYAMA Once I was chatting with Charlotte Tilbury and she said,
look like everybody else. COLLECTION DOROTHY PLATT’s wrap skirts ON DRESSING STAYING HOME ROSE WALDMAN From my closet I pull out a straight black skirt, my go-to on most days. I choose a cream-colored T-shirt to go with it, then the lace blouse I always wear over the T-shirt to hide the fatty bulges on my back. A perfectly good outfit—in Williamsburg, among my fellow Hasidim, that is. But for tonight’s event, I’m feeling doubtful. The outfit seems too overdone. Too formal. The blouse goes
from back then of my friend in one of the outfits. There is no way those things looked as good on any of us as they looked on her. What were we thinking? OLLA NAJAH AL-SHALCHI In high school, I started wearing a hijab, and was still trying to find a way of dressing like my peers, while also respecting my religion. So I would wear black pants, a beige shirt, a vest that was black and beige, and a beige hijab. But I love color, and this outfit was boring and lacked color. However, one day my