Women in Clothesis a book unlike any other. It is essentially a conversation among hundreds of women of all nationalities-famous, anonymous, religious, secular, married, single, young, old-on the subject of clothing, and how the garments we put on every day define and shape our lives.
It began with a survey. The editors composed a list of more than fifty questions designed to prompt women to think more deeply about their personal style. Writers, activists, and artists including Cindy Sherman, Kim Gordon, Kalpona Akter, Sarah Nicole Prickett, Tavi Gevinson, Miranda July, Roxane Gay, Lena Dunham, and Molly Ringwald answered these questions with photographs, interviews, personal testimonies, and illustrations.
Even our most basic clothing choices can give us confidence, show the connection between our appearance and our habits of mind, express our values and our politics, bond us with our friends, and function as armor or disguise. They are the tools we use to reinvent ourselves and to transform how others see us.Women in Clothesembraces the complexity of women's style decisions, revealing the sometimes funny, sometimes strange, always thoughtful impulses that influence our daily ritual of getting dressed.
Sheila Heti is the author of five books, including the critically acclaimedHow Should a Person Be?. She writes regularly for theLondon Review of Booksand is an editor and interviewer atTheBeliever.
Heidi Julavits is the author of four novels, most recentlyThe Vanishers, winner of the PEN/New England Fiction Award. She is a founding editor ofThe Believermagazine and an associate professor at Columbia University.
Leanne Shapton is an illustrator, author and publisher based in New York City. She is the author ofImportant ArtifactsandSwimming Studies, and winner of the 2012 National Book Critic's Circle Award for autobiography.