I was not aware of this, but apparently upper and middle class women in Victorian England often kept a dress diary. In this they recorded when a dress was purchased, when and where it had been worn, and other details about its construction and any alterations made to it in the future. They would add a snippet of the material and sometimes a drawing of the dress or of some of its interesting details or trimmings. Occasionally they would include the dresses of others they knew. The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes by Kate Strasdin is the author’s attempt to discover details of the life of one woman through the diary she has left behind her.
The author reconstructs, as far as she can, the details of Mrs Sykes’ life, and especially the countries she lived in with her husband. She shows us the types of events that she attended and what she would have worn, and also how this changed over the years that the diary was kept. We learn about her closest friends and what they wore, what she wore when she was in mourning, how her dress changed when she lived in Singapore and China, and what colours and styles were popular.
This is a fascinating account and the author makes an absorbing book from a sparse collection of facts and a few suppositions. She also uses the framework of the book to talk about dyes, the Industrial Revolution, how garments were cleaned, working conditions in the dress making industry, the human cost of the production of cotton, and the etiquette of dress. It’s a social history of dress and class.
I enjoyed this book a lot but was slightly disappointed that it had so few colour plates – I would have liked to see all the fabrics which are discussed instead of only a selection.
Anne Is Reading 