Dressays: An Anthology of Writing about Clothing

Dressays is an anthology of thought-provoking essays exploring how clothing can reveal the complex, deeply felt bonds we have with ourselves, our communities and the worlds through which we move. These deeply personal narratives demonstrate how, whether saturated with emotion or charged with political significance, dress both bears and shapes meaning. Collectively, they show how dress is as inextricable from shared cultures and histories as we are from the garments we wear. The contributions in this anthology articulate what is often felt but not seen when it comes to dress: how it ties us to other people, how it hides us even as it makes us visible, and how it helps us navigate and participate in our communities. They offer insight into a wide spectrum of human experiences, including how clothes relate to experiences of disability, chronic illness, religious faith, self-alienation and grief; of caring for a loved one, of being racialised, of coming to terms with one’s sexuality, and of custodianship of the natural world. By revealing how garments and accessories form the threshold of our experience of the world, these essays show just how entangled with both they are.