Original WOmen In Clothes, 2014, 562 women write about their wear to dress and their clothes

I finally finished this book.

It took me several months to make my way through it; this was not, for me, a pick-it-up-and-finish-it-in-one-go kind of book. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I have a lot of books in the slow-read category that I work my way through in bits and pieces over the long haul, sometimes years.

But in the case of Women in Clothes, it wasn't necessarily a good thing, either.

It aims to legitimize the concerns about dress--what to wear, when, why, and what that clothing communicates--that specifically women have as something that it is possible for serious, intellectual and successful women to think about. It certainly makes the case that women largely do think about this whether they should be or not, and that women put a fair bit of thought into what their clothing says about them, their lifestyles, their aspirations, and so on.

But the sheer variety of voices somewhat undercuts the success of this central message: one of the things that is most inescapable to conclude after reading Women in Clothes is that different women attach different meanings to the same clothing, so we're not all speaking the same language. It raises the question, what's the point?

Unfortunately this question--and others raised by the book--is never answered.

The book is a (very large) collection of completed surveys (you can find it here) by about 640 women, as well as essays, photo essays, stories, conversations and interviews with women about clothes. There's sure to be something in there that interests and resonates with you. Unfortunately, there isn't a conclusion, or any kind of unifying discussion. I'm sure that was their point, but it was also a drawback.

The book would have been vastly improved if it were cut in half and organized in some fashion--by theme, perhaps, or socio-economic group. It's an interesting book (in parts, anyway) but it could have been a lot better. ( )

Wunderbares Buch über Kleidung. Ganz jenseits von Glamour erzählen die verschiedensten Frauen was ihnen Kleidung bedeutet und welche Assoziationen sie zu Kleidung haben. Mir war das Buch ein bisschen zu schwer (lese im Bett), die Schrift nur mit Lesebrille zu entziffern und viele Fotos haben den Text aufgelockert, waren aber nichtssagend. Ich habe laufend die Frauen gegoogelt, um mir ein Bild von Ihnen machen zu können. ( )

This was quite an interesting book, which is a series of writings, interviews, art projects, and surveys about women's relationships with their clothes (and via that, their friends, mothers, lovers, etc.). I thought this was a really valuable project and some of the interviews and pieces are beautiful and packed with emotion, like micro short stories. Others seemed a little overwrought, but nevertheless I thought this book was a great idea. However, for me there were some areas that needed improvement.

First, the three primary authors/editors really grated on me. None of them had much of interest to say; I found their tone really shallow and dreaded reading a segment that had one of their names on it. This might have been influenced by the bad first impression I got from the introduction: a transcription of a boring Skype conversation among the three of them. I took against them, perhaps irrationally, from the beginning, despite the fact that they managed to put together this pretty great collection of images and texts.

Second, on the whole the book's participants skew very heavily toward a certain demographic: upper-middle-class (to judge from the brands and prices that were cited), highly educated urban white (or Asian) women in creative professions. I get that this is probably one of the largest audiences for fashion, but I was hoping to hear from more points of view. It seemed like most of the alternate perspectives were shunted into the sections where multiple short excerpts were collected together on a theme. I realize that I, myself, fit into the category of well-educated, urban white woman in a creative academic field, but I would have liked more of a diversity of perspectives.

It wasn't deep or anything, but I really enjoyed it in spite of these issues. I ended up reading it pretty much cover to cover and will probably dip into it again someday. ( )

This book is difficult. It is not that there aren't lots of interesting comments on how women feel about clothes, but I am too much of a scientist not to want some statistical info on the women quoted, specifically age and city. Race and profession would also be interesting because of the interaction between age of the respondent, her life experience, and the crowd she runs with. A woman of the 1960s who grew up with dirndls and dashikis and who never wore a bra is a different person from a woman of today who is stuffed into shapewear. Lawyers dress differently from artists. So for me this book is too unstructured.

I wrote the above paragraph as the start of the review, before I had finished the book. Much of the info I wanted, (including some ages, but no race designations) is at the very end of this 500+ page book. I did not know it was there as I was reading so the book lost a lot of meaning for me. I am not going to re-read to match the info with the names.

But now you know the list is there, you can bookmark it to cross-check as you read. For the next edition, the list should be at the front.

If you are dismayed by the Amazon online segment, the intro chapter is written a peculiar way. The main text reads better but the whole book sounds a lot like a slumber party in a sorority.

I received a review copy of Women in Clothes by Sheila Heti, Heidi Julavits, and Leanne Shapton (Penguin Group Blue Rider Press) through NetGalley.com. ( )