Dressed: A Philosophy of Clothes is a book for which a reader's knowledge of fashion is neither necessary nor especially useful. Being well versed in literature, film and art, on the other hand, will come in handy.
"If, like me, you are haunted by clothes... then you will understand something of the mystery and allure that this book sets out to investigate," writes Shahidha Bari in her introduction to Dressed. For Bari, who frequently makes references to Freud, a cigar case is never just a cigar case. Organizing her inquiry into five themed chapters ("Furs, Feathers, and Skins," "Pockets, Purses, and Suitcases," etc.), she dissects dozens of clothing items and accessories, many iconic (such as the dress in John Singer Sargent's Portrait of Madame X). Absolutely fascinating is her look at how the expanding size of women's handbags over time and the gradual inclusion of pockets in women's clothing correspond with increased female independence.
A professor at the London College of Fashion, Bari is an unflinching feminist ("How tiresome is the notion that a woman's shoes could be shorthand for her sexual availability") and an unflaggingly resourceful writer. Although Dressed is a dense text (it doesn't have that subtitle for nothing), respite comes regularly via the first-person meditations that begin each chapter as well as via the book's 30-odd photos and reproductions. A reader can compare, say, suits worn by Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest and by the singer Janelle Monáe; under Bari's tutelage, the reader will see radically different garments. --Nell Beram, author and freelance writer