This book is absolutely incredible and I would highly recommend it for anyone and everyone with an interest in textiles, cloth, history, memories, narratives and the complex interwoven relationship between textiles and meanings.

Even if I found the stories entertaining the book left a me bit confused and fell flat.
Not my cup of tea
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

This book caught my eye with the description as I have always loved the V & A Museum and was interested to get a inside view of it. However, this was not what this book was. Instead, it was a series (or ‘patchwork’) of stories about the authors life. Because of this I found the book rather disjointed and difficult to read, which is a shame because I usually really enjoy the personal insights of autobiographies, but with this book nothing seemed to flow and I found this very frustrating.

This was a real surprise! I was expecting much more about the author's work at the V&A. Instead it was a 'patchy but beautifully written memoir

This was totally not what I expected from the blurb about the book. I looked forward tor eading more aout her life in the museum and all the intracies that it involved, but over half the book was her childhood and growing up.her life story was intereting anf unny in parts, but it lacked the details that I was specifically looking for. Her roof garden and the cat were very funny. It is well written but is more a personal memoir than the back details of the V&A.

Patch Work by Claire Wilcox is a collection of ultra-short memoir stories which decribe events in her life, from childhood, to motherhood, to being an art student, to working life, to experiencing the death of her parents. Wilcox is also a curator in Fashion in the Victoria & Albert museum and it was this that I was most interested in.

Unfortunately, I found the book quite frustrating to read as I wanted the author to return to textiles, curation and preservation of garments and these parts felt like very brief interludes in amongst the family stories.

The stories were also arranged non-chronologically and often did not clarify the names of the characters which I found needlessly obfuscatory. For instance, the author went to (I think) Vivienne Westwood's house, but I don't know exactly when or really why except that she had to help herself to some apple pie.

In summary, a patchwork book which I enjoyed in pieces. I might have enjoyed it more if I was expecting a personal memoir rather than an account of a working life.

Thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for providing a review copy in exchange for honest feedback.

Patch Work by Claire Wilcox caught me by surprise. Professor Wilcox is the Senior Fashion Curator at the V&A Museum and I expected her book, subtitled “A Life Amongst Clothes”, to take items in the collection and explain them in detail. Nope – not even close. I don’t think I can do the book justice in this review – the beauty of the writing exceeds that of any other book I have read. A poet like Dylan Thomas or Ted Hughes could have written the sentence “The wind teased and threw twigs at my hair” and been proud of it.

The book is a series of musings – Wilcox takes a moment, a memory, and shares it. Some from childhood, some from adolescence, adulthood or parenthood. Not all are about clothes – in fact very few are ABOUT clothes, although most mention clothing tangentially. Wilcox worked at the V&A but left to study at Camberwell Art School, then returned: “Although I had come full circle, I never regretted my art school years, or the meandering, the doubling back, the flourishes and folds of life.”

Some memories are poignant and involve hospitals. There is an astute comparison between the museum store rooms and the hospital, “Both institutions are reminders of endings, of time creaking and shifting, of entries and exits.” And, having helped out at our local museum recently, I smiled wryly at the mention of some incredibly fragile breeches that are “impossible to mend, impossible to display, impossible to throw away”.

The family had a glass-fronted cupboard into which they put the orphaned clutter that every family has: baby teeth, keys to lost locks, etc. They called it their museum. Builders were coming and everything had to be packed away. Once the cupboard was emptied, “It’s just a cupboard now. It was only a museum because we said it was.”

Don’t buy this book to learn about the V&A or about clothing. Buy it to read something beautiful.

#PatchWork #NetGalley

This book was not what I expected but it's title is perfect. There is not over much about the history of clothes and the archive. But is certainly a patchwork of random memories joined together to make an entertaining and thoughtful read. I enjoyed it as it felt like the sort of book many of us could write if we had the skill. Just memories - the sort that pop into your head in the middle of the night from the depths of one's memory.
With thank to Netgalley and the publishers for the opportunity to read and review and e-ARC of this book.

I found this such a difficult read, I felt that it was shifting with each chapter and nothing seemed to connect. The writing and the story (if you can call it that) didn't really flow.

Patch Work by Claire Wilcox is an unusual memoir. The title is perfect, the book is made up of a series of vignettes stitched together to make a beautiful whole, much like the pieces that make up a patch work quilt, and since the author has worked as a curator in the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life, dealing with everything from top hats to medieval felt caps , fragile silks and yellowing linens, it seems wonderfully suited as a way to tell her story. We learn about how she grew up surrounded by the trappings of a seamstress, and how her mother made most of the family's clothes, from her own wedding suit to Claire's girlhood dresses , we follow her on her travels along the hippy trail to India , and even into her own journey into motherhood. These stories are woven into descriptions of her work as a curator and what that involves.
While I thought the writing had a beautiful lyrical quality, the book as a whole felt somewhat disjointed and was a little difficult to follow in places , especially since it did not seem to move in chronological order .
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.

I enjoyed this book, although it wasn't what I expected. It was not a straight biography, or a non-fiction history about clothes. Instead, the author weaves stories about the clothes she is helping restore at work with stories from her past, often not in chronological order. In an e-book especially, it was quite hard to follow, and illustrations would probably help with such a visual medium. Having worked in museums and archives, I did identify with the descriptions of eerie late night sessions cataloguing drawers of artefacts, and the descriptions of the V and A galleries that I know well, but without this knowledge I would probably have enjoyed it much less.

A really jagged approach to writing made this a difficult read for me: it's hard to get a handle on the narrative as it keeps shifting, sometimes from page to page, with mini-headings breaking up the text constantly. It's part biography (though I wasn't quite clear when it was all taking place), part clothes diary, part insight into a curator's job.... The writing never really flowed: interesting material (ha!) but a struggle to read, I'm afraid.