Fabric: The Hidden History Of The Material World

Bestselling author Victoria Finlay spins us around the globe in a vibrant exploration of cloth through the ages. She beats the inner bark of trees into cloth in Papua New Guinea, visits tweed weavers at their homes in Harris, and has lessons in patchwork-making in Gee's Bend, Alabama. Along the way, she uncovers the hidden histories of fabric: how and why people have made it, worn it, invented it, and made symbols of it. Interlaced with Victoria's own story of grief and recovery, Fabric is a lush patchwork of travel, history, memoir, and culture — an unforgettable look into how we have made fabric, and how it has made us.