The hidden fabric of a Victorian woman's life - from family and friends to industry and Empire - told through her unique textile scrapbook. There was no immediate indication of who might have created this amazing dress diary, as I called it—of who had spent so much time carefully arranging the pieces of wool, silk, cotton, and lace into a document of lives in cloth. While there was much I was uncertain of, however, one thing I knew for sure from the careful handwriting that arched over each piece of cloth: this was the work of one woman. I just didn’t know who she was. In the C18th and C19th, clothes were made for the wearer; there were almost no “off-the-peg” dresses, suits, etc.. One would buy a length of material and make it (or have it made by someone else) into clothing, upholstery or curtains. Anne Sykes obtained small fragments of the leftover material from friends and relations for her book. A typical inscription might state “Adam’s vest new on his birthday July 12th 1843.” I would have loved to have seen photos of the glorious fabrics described throughout, but perhaps that will be present in other versions of the book… for now, I will rely on the delightful descriptions, and would recommend this book to anyone interested in this period of history, or the history of fashion.

My thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK/ Vintage publishers for my advance digital copy given in exchange for my honest review. It has been an absolute delight and pleasure to read this novel. One of the other reasons why it has taken me so long to read the book is because apart from Sykes's time in Singapore and then China, her home and her birthplace were in Lancashire, which is where I live. The first part of the book covers the birth of the cotton industry which brought about the start of the Industrial revolution. I live in Oldham where at the height of the cotton industry there were around 400 cotton mills built here. Both my maternal grandparents worked in cotton mills which made this book all the more interesting.Basically, the author was given an old scrapbook of textile swatches, kept and collected by a random ordinary merchant-class British woman throughout her life, that was ultimately found in a stall in Camden Market. I suppose it's actually a book about material culture and what this artifact of a 19th century life can illuminate and obfuscate. The Dress Diary: Secrets From a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe by Dr. Kate Strasdin is a wonderful nonfiction and history book that gives us a never before experience into the lives of Victorian women through one woman’s unique journalistic account.

Despite all the knowledge we have gained as a result of Anne’s diary finding itself in Strasdin’s hands, there is also so much we can never know. Throughout the book, alongside the concrete findings, are queries about the intricacies of their thoughts, emotions, and activities. How close the relationships between Anne and those mentioned in her diary, whether they genuinely liked or politely accepted the fabrics and garments gifted to them, all these personal thoughts and more that are just beyond our reach, not recorded in marriage records or newspaper cuttings. In many ways, thisadds to the intrigue maintained throughout the book. We know Anne so well, having been able to trace her life (and wardrobe) from these fragments of cloth, and yet we also come out knowing so little about her personality. Ultimately though, this remains a value, not a disappointment – these questions that are raised providing a constant reminder of the individual people, with all their thoughts and feelings, mundanehabits and routines, excitements and tragedies, attached to every historical artefact. This appears to me as a fascination, more than a frustration, at least as I read it. ‘The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes’ may start with snippets of fabric collected by just one Lancashire woman, but it certainly does not end there. This is a journey Kate Strasdin takes us on with her; the precision, openness, and curiousity, with which she does so filling me with positive affirmation of my fascination with history (and love of prints!). The author captures it best herself: ‘Anne’s story is both remarkable and ordinary’. This interjection of broader and sometimes darker histories running alongside Anne’s does not come withoutbeing ableto share in the joy of these wonderful textiles. While the book does not have frequent images of these, Strasdin’s vivid descriptions of not only the textilesthemselves but the ways and settings in which they would be worn or used are so transportive, it doesnot leave asmuch to be desired by way of imageryas you might expect. Unexpectedly, perhaps, the element of surprise is present even through the textiles documented by Anneas much as the stories that come from them. I would consider myself relatively familiar with textiles and prints typical of the period, but even I was fascinated at Strasdin’s detailing of an 1842 leopard print waxed cotton, captioned as being used for Anne’s furniture. Leopard print, that I would associate as having emerged in popular usein the mid-20th century, used in interiors two centuries earlier! Further evidence that the personal objects of one, seemingly ordinary for her standing, woman can bring so much to our ownpictureof the past (a theme throughout thebook, as you might sense).Anne’s identity radiated out in myriad hues and materials, connecting her to her world and allowing us to join her. Discovering that Anne Sykes was the hitherto unknown creator of the book that I had been meticulously transcribing was at once both exciting and perplexing. I felt certain that she had to be a dressmaker, a woman whose role in life was to clothe her clients, taking a keen interest in shape and style, keeping the secrets of bodies. In that moment I could never have anticipated just how much I would be able to uncover. Despite, as the title makes evident, the book focusing on one Victorian character – Mrs Anne Sykes, in a sense while reading you follow the stories of two main women; Anne Sykesherself, and the story of Kate Strasdin’s research process as she uncovers Anne’s story. Both of these stories converge around one key item, Anne’s diary, in which swatches of textiles are documented, starting after her marriage in her early 20s. Using these textiles and captions, Strasdin follows Anne, tracing her movements and her acquaintances, with the help of historical records and knowledge of the lives of women of Anne’s standing. Fantastically; what starts as a collection of fragments of textiles – not even whole garments – becomes a full life.

An evocative and often touching exercise in re-imagining these fragments of fabric into historical life... it is delightful Prospect In fact, in the whole of the UK, I failed to find another album like either Barbara Johnson’s or the one that had fallen into my own hands. That is not to say they do not exist, or were not created in greater numbers in decades past. My mystery diarist could not have been the only one in the nineteenth century to choose to record an aspect of her life in this way, and the very tactility of cloth lends itself to this form of remembrance. There may well be volumes of fabric scraps languishing in trunks in attics, or wrapped in the bottom drawer of an elderly chest. There may even be examples that were once catalogued and then forgotten in an archive or a museum, their value yet to be identified. The story of a singular woman... Kate Strasdin's forensic detective work has finally let Mrs Sykes - and her book - speak again' JUDITH FLANDERSThis interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Listen to more episodes on:

In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments - some her own, others donated by family and friends - she carefully annotated each one, creating a unique record of their lives. Her name was Mrs Anne Sykes. Finally, into the book, the author discovers that it belonged to Anne Sykes, which allows her to not only trace her life through the fabrics, but some of the others mentioned throughout. The material is from outfits belong to Sykes and to family and friends - and I can only admire Strasdin's long hours of research through census records, newspaper archives etc to tell her story. Thanks to Strasdin's forensic research...this book opens into a vivid history of expansion and empire. And all wrapped up in 2,184 pieces of cloth BBC History Magazine

Table of Contents

The fabric swatches in Mrs. Sykes' diary were not all from her own clothing. Friends, family, and others gave her little pieces of fabric that they'd used to have their own clothes made. Anne carefully placed all the swatches in her book and wrote captions, indicating whose fabric it was and sometimes the occasion on which the resulting clothing was worn. The author used this information to look into various aspects of life during the time span of the diary. For example, Anne and her merchant husband, Adam, spent 7 years in Singapore living in a British community there. Through the fabric swatches and captions, followed by the author's research, we learn about what life was like in such communities, what people felt about being so far from home, the relationships that developed, and the kinds of material goods that were a part of everyday life. When they returned to England, styles had changed and we learn about the kinds of events and occasions that people of a certain class would have attended, how mourning fashions evolved and became big business, and more. There are many "unsolved" mysteries, as there is only so much research one can do into an "ordinary" person - but with more historical archives becoming available all the time, perhaps some of these will be unravelled.