Charlie Porter Bring No Clothes : Bloomsbury & the Philosophy of Fashion

He makes us see a subject we thought we knew so well from a completely different angle in writing that is deeply researched, but inviting, warm, and full of personality Katy HesselCharlie Porter is a magician Olivia Laing Why do we wear what we wear? To answer this question, we must go back and unlock the wardrobes of the early twentieth century, when fashion as we know it was born. In Bring No Clothes, acclaimed fashion writer Charlie Porter brings us face to face with six members of the Bloomsbury Groupthe collective of creatives and thinkers who were in the vanguard of a social and sartorial revolution. Each of them offers fresh insight into the constraints and possibilities of fashion today from the stifling repression of E. M. Forsters top buttons to the creativity of Vanessa Bells wayward hems from the sheer pleasure of Ottoline Morrells lavish dresses to the clashing selfconsciousness of Virginia Woolfs orange stockings from Duncan Grants liberated play with nudity to John Maynard Keyness power play in the traditional suit. As Porter carefully unpicks what they wore and how they wore it, we see how clothing can be a means of artistic, intellectual and sexual liberation, or, conversely, a tool for patriarchal control. As he travels through libraries, archives, attics and studios, Porter uncovers new evidence about his subjects, revealing them in a thrillingly intimate, vivid new light. And, as he begins making his own clothing, his own perspective on fashionand on... | Charlie Porter Bring No Clothes : Bloomsbury & the Philosophy of Fashion