The writer Sheila Heti wanted to find a book that would tell her what women who dress well think about their clothes. She realised “I couldn’t find any book like that so we had to go make that book” and the result is Women in Clothes, a collaboration between her, the writer Heidi Julavits and the illustrator and writer Leanne Shapton. Between them, these three editors interviewed over 639 women including Cindy Sherman, Lena Dunham and Molly Ringwald about their relationship with clothes.
Women in Clothes is a far cry from a coffee table book simply about how to dress beautifully: among the most interesting conversations in the book is one with a Bangladeshi factory worker who survived the Rana Plaza collapse.
On a more light-hearted note, there are pictures of different women’s collections, of Peter Pan-collared shirts, or nail varnishes, or bras. Women in Clothes ultimately feeds on our curiosity about each other’s clothing choices, bodies and self-esteem in a book that is part a snoop into other women’s wardrobes, part a sociological study and part a work of art.
