Eighteenth-century women told their life stories through making. With its compelling stories of women's material experiences and practices, Material Lives offers a new perspective on eighteenth-century production and consumption. Genteel women's making has traditionally been seen as decorative, trivial and superficial. Yet their material archives, forged through fabric samples, watercolours, dressed prints and dolls' garments, reveal how women used the material culture of making to record and navigate their lives.
Material Lives positions women as 'makers' in a consumer society. Through fragments of fabric and paper, Dyer explores an innovative way of accessing the lives of otherwise obscured women. For researchers and students of material culture, dress history, consumption, gender and women's history, it offers a rich resource to illuminate the power of needles, paintbrushes and scissors.
| ISBN: | 9781350126961 |
| Publication date: | 25th February 2021 |
| Author: | Serena Dyer |
| Publisher: | Bloomsbury Visual Arts an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 272 pages |
| Genres: |
Fashion and textile design Material culture Cultural studies: dress and society Gender studies: women and girls History of art |