The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes: Secrets from a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe

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The book contains a bibliography and colour photos of the fabric swatches discussed - I had an electronic copy of the book & would be interested to see these photographs in the print version! There's a chapter on Victorian mourning customs (as there are several swatches in the diary captioned for the mourning attire of various people Anne Sykes knew), with fascinating information about how the sartorial expectations of "proper" mourning were codified, marketed, and observed by people at varying levels depending on gender, class, geographic location, etc. This is a book that you can dip in and out of, and is an ideal travelling companion. I actually started reading it when I was on a short trip away from home, staying in Clitheroe - which turned out to be the birthplace of Mrs Sykes! An astonishing coincidence that made the book all the more interesting to me.

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. Strasdin is a wonderful writer and the book delves into not only Anne's life but the world of the Victorians and the material they used to clothe themselves. We get insights into mourning clothes, poisonous dyes, Lancashire's cotton industry and the Empire that lay beyond etc. Chapters on early 19th-century dressmakers, tailors and milliners in Anne Sykes' orbit make it clear that garment workers have always been (and continue to be) highly skilled, overworked, underpaid, and mistreated by both their clients and employers. The circumstances are different but I found myself continually reminded of garment-workers' struggles that would arise in the intervening time, from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire to the 21st-century injustices in the sweatshops of Indonesia and Bangladesh. How serendipitous that a diary dating from 1838 and containing hundreds of snippets of fabric should fall into fashion historian Kate Strasdin's capable hands.

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This was a fascinating story, or groups of stories, giving insights into time, place, and lives of mostly the industrialist class as it develops in England. What the author was able to learn about Anne, her family, and their social milieu was fascinating. The book is written in a very readable way, though it is a research project report. The author received a book that held many samples of fabric, annoted with the names and dates of those who wore those fabrics. Eventually the creator of the sample book was revealed as a "Mrs Ann Sykes" - by a single mention of her name. The author has researched extensively into the life and times of Mrs Sykes, and discovered many interesting facts, which she has woven into a fascinating picture. I saw a social media post by the author of this book, and really wanted to read this. It took a while until my turn came up at the library, but it was worth the wait! 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.

This is a wonderful book! The life of a woman, a time and an industry, woven, like cloth, into something unique and beguiling. A treat for the curious reader Pip Williams, author of The Dictionary of Lost Words The section on laundering and caring for clothes was a reminder that in the days before washing machines & tumble driers, laundry was a lengthy & laborious process. People had far fewer clothes than we have today, with fabric bought in bolts and made to measure by a tailor/seamstress. Outer clothes were spot cleaned but washed infrequently, with detachable collars & cuffs, petticoat flounces & shifts used to catch as much dirt as possible to reduce the need for everything to be laundered after each wear – I think Anne and her circle of friends would be both fascinated and horrified by our modern approach to clothing, both in terms of the concept of ready-to-wear items and our obsession with washing fabric so often! Teeming with history and detail - a fascinating exploration of how even the smallest scraps of fabric can open up large stories Lynn Knight, author of THE BUTTON BOX Dr. Kate Strasdin is a fashion historian, museum curator and lecturer at Falmouth University, where she teaches the history of fashion design, marketing, and photography.

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This is a fascinating and beyond amazing look into the life, culture, society, and everyday adventures of a woman in the Victorian era. Through this journey, through this seemingly “normal” scrapbook of materials, swatches, and samples, we learn so much more of the woman behind the artistry, Anne Sykes, and the lives of not only herself and her family, but her friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and society as a whole. A whole world pf women, their respective voices and lives are brought to life, a multitude of windows that allow us to gaze into the hopes, dreams, loves, losses, and souls of so many women that had been looked over and forgotten.