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.

In the C18th and C19th, clothes were made for the wearer; there were almost no “off-the-peg” dresses, suits, etc.. One would buy a length of material and make it (or have it made by someone else) into clothing, upholstery or curtains. Anne Sykes obtained small fragments of the leftover material from friends and relations for her book. A typical inscription might state “Adam’s vest new on his birthday July 12th 1843.” There is just so much information gathered together in one place. The history of cotton, calico, silk, the development of dyeing techniques, as well as descriptions of trading and the politics of the time. I have spent a lot of time myself looking up the beginnings of retail as we know it today. The development of off the peg clothes as opposed to having everything made. How shops such as Kendals in Manchester first began. I didn't know where the term 'mad as a hatter' came from, but I do now.Strasdin's painstaking detective work has uncovered many of the fascinating insights behind the fabric swatches contained in this unusual collection Sunday Times This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in fashion, genealogy, the textile industry, the Victorian era or social history. It’s a very unusual book, focusing on an ordinary (though admittedly fairly wealthy) woman rather than an aristocrat, and one that really brings the past to life through the personal touch. Wedding dresses sit alongside cloaks, day dresses and mourning attire – the various items of clothing taking the wearer through every aspect of their daily life. 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 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.

For the imaginative reader, on closing the book, ' the silks still glisten from the paper' Mail Plus In January 2016 I was given an extraordinary gift. Underneath brown paper that had softened with age and molded to the shape of the object within, I discovered a treasure almost two centuries old that revealed the life of one woman and her broader network of family and friends. It was a book, a ledger of sorts, covered in a bright magenta silk that was frayed along the edge so that a glimpse of its marbled cover was just visible. The shape of the book had distorted—it was narrow at the spine but expanded at the right edge to accommodate the contents, reminding me of my mum’s old recipe book, which had swelled over the years as newspaper cuttings and handwritten notes were added. The Dress Diary: Secrets From a Victorian Woman’s Wardrobe by Dr. Kate Strasdin is a wonderful nonfiction and history book that gives us a never before experience into the lives of Victorian women through one woman’s unique journalistic account.It was just beyond fabulous to learn about such a unique journal and book, and to have the privilege to have the talented author draw us this picture through her writings. I greatly enjoyed and appreciate this experience. Kate Strasdin wanted to know more & set out on a quest to find out as much as she could about the woman behind the book, and this is the result of several years of research. 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!

Anne’s identity radiated out in myriad hues and materials, connecting her to her world and allowing us to join her. Discovering that Anne Sykes was the hitherto unknown creator of the book that I had been meticulously transcribing was at once both exciting and perplexing. I felt certain that she had to be a dressmaker, a woman whose role in life was to clothe her clients, taking a keen interest in shape and style, keeping the secrets of bodies. In that moment I could never have anticipated just how much I would be able to uncover. I found it absolutely fascinating, both the information on so many aspects of Victorian social history, in particular clothing and fashion, but also the author's patience and investigative enthusiasm. The diary is basically made up of swatches of fabric that Anne Sykes put together over quite a number of years. There is practically no text in the diary apart from very short captions and the mention of names, sometimes in relation to whom the fabric belonged to and what item of clothing it was taken from. And yet despite this scant information and absolutely no knowledge of who Anne Sykes was when she first set out, the author has managed to glean enough information from public records to be able to trace the movements of Anne Sykes and her husband over most of her adult lifetime. 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. 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.

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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. 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! The structure of the album, the names, and the cloths themselves all suggested that this was not a volume compiled in the rarefied spaces of the aristocracy but something more quotidian: the creator being a woman of some means, but inhabiting the world of the well-to-do middle classes. This woman and others—women whose lives would otherwise go unrecorded, hidden in the shadows of history—found themselves unwittingly front and center in this story. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Listen to more episodes on: The Dress Diary of Anne Sykes and Kate Strasdin proves beyond a doubt that fashion history stands as a part of the social history of any time period that must be considered when we truly try to know a time and place. Women were hugely influential in the choices connected to fashion, letting us find some of their stories within the shadows of "important" history as so often focused on by men, but Strasdin reminds us in this book of the huge web of social and global economic influences a phrase like "fashion history" truly means. Not something to be scoffed at, it is a growing field of study that should be both celebrated and encouraged.