The Button Box: The Story of Women in the 20th Century Told Through the Clothes They Wore

Author:   Lynn Knight
Publisher:   Vintage Publishing
ISBN:  

9780099593096


Pages:   320
Publication Date:   09 March 2017
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
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The Button Box: The Story of Women in the 20th Century Told Through the Clothes They Wore


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Overview

An ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century (Guardian) - the story of women in the twentieth century told through the clothes they wore A wooden box holds the buttons of three generations of women in Lynn Knight's family - each one with its own tale to tell... Tracing the story of women at home and in work, from the jet buttons of Victorian mourning, to the short skirts of the 1960s, taking in suffragettes, bachelor girls, little dressmakers, Biba and the hankering for vintage, The Button Box lifts the lid on women's lives and their clothes with elegance and wit.

Full Product Details

Author:   Lynn Knight
Publisher:   Vintage Publishing
Imprint:   Vintage
Dimensions:   Width: 13.40cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 17.80cm
Weight:   0.206kg
ISBN:  

9780099593096


ISBN 10:   0099593092
Pages:   320
Publication Date:   09 March 2017
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Tertiary & Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order   Availability explained
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.

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Reviews

A charming work of social history Bookseller Knight explores her own family's history and, in parallel, the intimate history of women in the 20th century... The politics of being a modern woman are revealed through changing fashions... In Knight's hands, buttons - the humblest of everyday objects - become portals into the past, charting our progress along that road. -- Lucy Moore Literary Review Charming book... Knight's brilliant notion is to use the button box she inherited from her grandmother as a way of delving into the fabric, literal and metaphorical, of the women who wore them... A patchwork of memory, anecdote and deft quotation. -- Daisy Goodwin The Sunday Times Inspired by her own shimmering box of toggles, clasps and buckles, Knight takes us on an ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century... From this core of very personal material, Knight writes more generally of ordinary women's lives and changing prospects over three generations, of clothes as self-expression, as defiance, as entertainment, as evidence of frugality and frivolity all rolled into one. -- Claire Harman Guardian The drama of women's lives from the 19th to the mid-20th century was hidden in plain sight among the brightly coloured buttons that rattled so enticingly in [Knight's] grandmother's Quality Street tin... Fascinating social history. -- Jane Shilling Daily Mail


The drama of women's lives from the 19th to the mid-20th century was hidden in plain sight among the brightly coloured buttons that rattled so enticingly in [Knight's] grandmother's Quality Street tin... Fascinating social history. -- Jane Shilling * Daily Mail * Inspired by her own shimmering box of toggles, clasps and buckles, Knight takes us on an ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century... From this core of very personal material, Knight writes more generally of ordinary women's lives and changing prospects over three generations, of clothes as self-expression, as defiance, as entertainment, as evidence of frugality and frivolity all rolled into one. -- Claire Harman * Guardian * Charming book... Knight's brilliant notion is to use the button box she inherited from her grandmother as a way of delving into the fabric, literal and metaphorical, of the women who wore them... A patchwork of memory, anecdote and deft quotation. -- Daisy Goodwin * The Sunday Times * Knight explores her own family's history and, in parallel, the intimate history of women in the 20th century... The politics of being a modern woman are revealed through changing fashions... In Knight's hands, buttons - the humblest of everyday objects - become portals into the past, charting our progress along that road. -- Lucy Moore * Literary Review * A charming work of social history * Bookseller *


Author Information

Lynn Knight was born in Derbyshire and lives in London. The women of her family passed on many stories along with beaded bags and buttoned gauntlets, and fostered her interest in the texture and narratives of women's lives. She is the author of the biography Clarice Cliff (2005), a memoir, Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue- The Story of an Accidental Family (2011), and The Button Box- The story of women in the 20th century, told through the clothes they wore (2016). Miss Burnham and the Loose Thread is her first novel.

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