Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World

by Victoria Finlay

Overview

A magnificent work of original research that unravels history through textiles and cloth—how we make it, use it, and what it means to us.

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

How is a handmade fabric helping save an ancient forest?
Why is a famous fabric pattern from India best known by the name of a Scottish town?
How is a Chinese dragon robe a diagram of the whole universe?
What is the difference between how the Greek Fates and the Viking Norns used threads to tell our destiny?

In Fabric, bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us round the globe, weaving stories of our relationship with cloth and asking how and why people through the ages have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols out of it. And sometimes why they have fought for it.

She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, fails to handspin cotton in Guatemala, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama - where in the 1930s, deprived of almost everything they owned, a community of women turned quilting into an art form.

She began her research just after the deaths of both her parents —and entwined in the threads she found her personal story too. Fabric is not just a material history of our world, but Finlay's own journey through grief and recovery.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781639361649
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	378,739
File size:	49 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Victoria Finlay is the critically acclaimed author of Color: Travels Through the Paintbox and the former arts editor of the South China Morning Post. She studied social anthropology and has travelled around the world in search of stories about her subjects, from colour to jewels and fabric. As well as writing, she has worked in international development.

Table of Contents

Maps viii

Introduction 1

Some words before we start 5

1 Barkcloth 7

2 Tapa 33

3 Cotton 68

4 Wool 138

5 Tweed 175

6 Pashmina 202

7 Sackcloth 244

8 Linen 277

9 Silk 319

10 Imagined Fabrics 378

11 Patchwork 417

Epilogue 436

A Note about the Cover 448

A Note for the Future 451

Acknowledgements 452

Notes 455

Museums 474

Picture Credits 475

Selected Bibliography 478

Index 495

Editorial Reviews

"Victoria Finlay’s Fabric: The Hidden History of the Material World is itself a beautiful tapestry of a work, woven together to unfold a hidden but powerful history of fabrics. Yet the book is more than a history of fabrics—it draws out the human spirit and culture deeply embedded in fabric making, from simple sewing to more technological production. Finlay engages the reader through personal trajectories, keen observations, interesting historical narratives and illustrative examples."

The Englewood Review of Books

"Subtle, compendious and rich, if this was just a cultural history of fabric it would be a fine piece of work. But Finlay weaves another story into the book: she is grieving for her mother. More often the book acquires an extra dimension; the effect that springs to mind is the strange iridescence of that twin-coloured silk you sometimes find as the lining of a suit jacket. This book recovers that relatively silenced or at least sidelined history. It is an emotive and serious work of what you might call history on the distaff side."

The Sunday Times (UK)

"In Fabric: The hidden history of the material world, Victoria Finlay wants to recover 'the truth in fabric.' Her sprawling book, part history, part travelogue and part memoir, takes her from Papua New Guinea to Paisley in search of the materials, processes and meanings of ten types of cloth."

Times Literary Supplement

"This exuberant history of textiles grew out of the author’s hunger to learn about the links that 'the material we can see has with the non-material world we cannot see.

The New Yorker

"Finlay’s writing is at once technical, historical and deeply personal. Like a skilled weaver, she takes many disparate threads and constructs a compelling narrative as informative as it is emotionally engaging. Part historical survey, part memoir and part travelogue, Fabric follows Finlay as she discovers the secrets behind each material’s history — all written as she mourned the deaths of her parents."

Editor's Choice New York Times Book Review

"This exuberant history of textiles grew out of the author’s hunger to learn about the links that 'the material we can see has with the non-material world we cannot see.' Chapters are organized around journeys, in which Finlay, an Englishwoman, goes as far afield as Leh, in Kashmir, to speak with a pashmina goatherd, and Papua New Guinea, to watch Maisin women paint tapa, a cloth made from bark."

New Yorker

"Fabric bundles history, travelogue, and memoir, flowing easily between exposition, narrative, and intimate accounts of Finlay's travels and her grief. The writing is authoritative and engaging, packed with memorable vignettes and trivia."

Booklist

"Finlay’s writing is at once technical, historical and deeply personal. Like a skilled weaver, she takes many disparate threads and constructs a compelling narrative as informative as it is emotionally engaging. Part historical survey, part memoir and part travelogue, Fabric follows Finlay as she discovers the secrets behind each material’s history — all written as she mourned the deaths of her parents."

New York Times Book Review

Subtle, compendious, and rich…If this were just a cultural history of fabric, it would be a fine piece of work. But Finlay weaves another story into the book: she is grieving for her mother.”

Sunday Times (London)

"This exuberant history of textiles grew out of the author’s hunger to learn about the links that 'the material we can see has with the non-material world we cannot see.' Chapters are organized around journeys, in which Finlay, an Englishwoman, goes as far afield as Leh, in Kashmir, to speak with a pashmina goatherd, and Papua New Guinea, to watch Maisin women paint tapa, a cloth made from bark."

New Yorker

"This exuberant history of textiles grew out of the author’s hunger to learn about the links that 'the material we can see has with the non-material world we cannot see.

The New Yorker

"Fabric bundles history, travelogue, and memoir, flowing easily between exposition, narrative, and intimate accounts of Finlay's travels and her grief. The writing is authoritative and engaging, packed with memorable vignettes and trivia."

Booklist

03/01/2023

Continuing in the tradition of her previous works, Finlay (Color: A Natural History of the Palette; Jewels: A Secret History; The Brilliant History of Color in Art) uses her travels to explore the extraordinarily rich and varied history of textiles across the world. Divided into 11 chapters covering everything from barkcloth in the South Pacific to cotton, wool, pashmina, and more, the book interweaves the rich, detailed history of each type of cloth with stories from the author's investigative travels to the countries and communities that produce these fabrics. Written during a period in Finlay's life when she experienced significant personal loss, the chapters often focus more on her lived experiences and her own explorations than the in-depth history some readers may be looking for. However, these elements, which help the book read like a travel narrative or memoir as opposed to a more straightforward reference volume, also make the book accessible to a wider variety of readers and researchers. Illustrations, photographs, maps, and extensive notes complete the volume. VERDICT A solid addition for any library with a particularly robust fashion or textiles collection.—Whitney Kramer

Library Journal