Book Review: Women in Clothes

Book: Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, Leanne Shapton and others

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Publisher: PEGUIN GROUP Blue Rider Press

Description:

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.


Rating: 1 star

Review:

Women in Clothes would have made a good documentary with the interviews, essays, comments and pictures about how women (and some men) see fashion but in book form it's very long winded (it's over 500 pages) and boring. This is a book that details how women feel not only about fashion (beauty or their image) but about how they feel about what they wear and how they look.

The authors spoke with everyday women (and a few celebrities) about how fashion and style influenced their lives and experiences.

There is a lot in this book from survey research to pictures of people's collections but with so much stuff it never quite seemed to jell. The book just felt so random. Although this didn't quite work, I can see what the authors were trying to do, they didn't want the typical glossy fashion book that instructs women what to buy and how to wear it. They wanted to take a different approach to how women look at fashion, hear how everyday women deal with fashion. But this just seemed like some weird-indie-I'm-trying-not-be-cool-fashion-book instead of being something interesting to read.

Although, I did find the discussions on ethical shopping, worker exploitation, sweatshops and whether it matters to you where and how your clothes are made. Reading the interviews with some of the people who work in the factories did give me something think about in regards to the fashion industry. That was probably the most worthwhile thing I got out of this book.

Ultimately, this book for better or worse gives the reader insight into how some women see fashion. Unfortunately, there was also a lot of things in this that had absolutely nothing to do with fashion and along with the randomness makes this a disappointing read.