“Patch Work: A Life Amongst Clothes” by Claire Wilcox. London. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2021. 304 pages, $24.98 (hardcover).

Our life can be viewed through many different lenses. We often keep things that trigger our memories or have moments that throw us back into the past. Claire Wilcox takes this concept and uses it as a narrative framework through her life’s work as a curator – with her archive of objects and memories. Whether she is describing a dress, unworn for years but clearly once someone’s favorite, or the outline of a buckle in leather that is now lost, Claire uses these items to tell us her story. We journey with her, learning about her position as a curator in fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum, where we are given glimpses of rooms full of clothes that are centuries old and how they try to preserve them, to a basement full of pieces of mannequins and forgotten stands that might be haunted, to cool, dark hallways that will lead us to the clothing and fashion that tell stories otherwise forgotten.

Interwoven in the stories of her workplace are other stories from her childhood and past. Wilcox shares stories of her own trials, of making fairy wings for her daughters and of the medical battles they fought. There are fragile moments where you could imagine someone holding an old wedding dress or piece of silk and looking back into their memories tinged with sadness as they relate their story; there are happier times where Wilcox delights us with her knowledge or a fun encounter she had with an eccentric woman she would spend two years learning fashion from.

The timeline is not chronological, and the stories as in life bounce back and forth between the author’s work and her home life. However, because she did not use names, and it was not linear, I sometimes didn’t understand exactly what was happening. I was unsure, at one point, if perhaps there had been a loss in her family, and for a few of the stories it was hard to tell chronologically where they would fit in (which would greatly help with context). However, this works in some ways because often, as with our memories, they are jumbled and confusing and brought back to us by pieces of our lives long forgotten. Overall, it was not enough to make me quit reading, nor to dislike the book. I do wonder if upon a second reading of it if I would better understand what was happening. I’ll admit to looking up a short biography of the author to also try and figure out exactly what was going on – but honestly I can say that I am not sure we are really meant to know.

Wilcox’s language is poetic as she describes the clothing and pieces she comes across, no matter how small or insignificant we might have thought it would have been in our own lives. My favorite pieces of the book were when she was describing older clothing, and a part of me greatly wishes more of the book had actually focused on the clothing within the museum rather than on the stories they can tell (that’ll be the historian in me). There is a power to the idea of knowing that the items we wear day in and day out can leave behind a story of ourselves to someone else with the knowledge of what to look for – from the wear patterns and creases, to how worn or brand new they were. It was fascinating to explore the museum and their archives through Wilcox’s eyes.

That same power was then turned on her own memories. Clothing and all our accessories are an extension of who we are and our personality. They help us tell a story of who we are and how we feel. A powerful suit can transform us for a meeting, or a pretty dress can lift our confidence for the day. Just as a certain hoodie you were wearing when you got bad news might always carry that memory for you, or a shirt of a loved one may be turned into a bear. We keep clothes for so many reasons, and this book showed me the power they have in writing and remembering our own stories.

Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her career. Wilcox is also the one who instigated Fashion in Motion (live catwalks in the museum), which she discusses in the book. Wilcox is currently a professor at the London College of Fashion and is also on the editorial board of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body and Culture.

– Reviewed by Fallon Willoughby, first-year experience instructor, Southcentral Kentucky Community & Technical College.