Description

Dressays is an anthology of thought-provoking essays exploring how clothing can reveal the complex, deeply felt bonds we have with ourselves, our communities and the worlds through which we move. These deeply personal narratives demonstrate how, whether saturated with emotion or charged with political significance, dress both bears and shapes meaning. Collectively, they show how dress is as inextricable from shared cultures and histories as we are from the garments we wear.

The contributions in this anthology articulate what is often felt but not seen when it comes to dress: how it ties us to other people, how it hides us even as it makes us visible, and how it helps us navigate and participate in our communities. They offer insight into a wide spectrum of human experiences, including how clothes relate to experiences of disability, chronic illness, religious faith, self-alienation and grief; of caring for a loved one, of being racialised, of coming to terms with one’s sexuality, and of custodianship of the natural world. By revealing how garments and accessories form the threshold of our experience of the world, these essays show just how entangled with both they are.

Publisher Review

The anthology is a hymn to experiential dress. The essays beautifully, often lyrically, narrate how garments and accessories shape our emotional lives, how their materiality solidifies our bonds with others and ourselves. They tell stories about how we inhabit the world in and through our and everybody else's clothes. An intriguing read. * Lucia Ruggerone, The Robert Gordon University, UK * Roving, nuanced, and fiercely observed. An inquiry into garments that anatomizes the broader and oftentimes personal implications of what we wear. * Durga Chew-Bose, Author of 'Too Much and Not the Mood' (2017) and writer and director of 'Bonjour Tristesse' (2024) * With the same kind of beauty found in a well-constructed garment, or the reassurance felt from wearing a well-loved outfit, Rosie Findlay's Dressays is an anthology made to be read with care and gratitude. Findlay's expertly chosen selection of essays on clothing, style, and feeling is a much-needed addition to the existing canon of literature on fashion and its many uses. The range of ideas and experiences shared here by various writers coheres into an elegant, moving collection that will undoubtedly inspire all who read it. * Haley Mlotek, author of 'No Fault: A Memoir of Romance and Divorce' * This diverse and beautiful collection of essays connects dress to the circuits of memory, feeling and power that shape us and the world we share. * Ilya Parkins, University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Canada *