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The Button Box Lynn Knight

The Button Box By Lynn Knight

The Button Box by Lynn Knight


£3.50
New RRP £10.99
Condition - Very Good
5 in stock

Summary

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, this book lifts the lid on women's lives and their clothes.

The Button Box Summary

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

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.

The Button Box 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 *

About Lynn Knight

Lynn Knight was born in Derbyshire and lives in London. The women of her family, who have passed on many stories along with beaded bags and buttoned gauntlets, fostered her interest in the texture and narratives of women's lives. She is also the author of the biography Clarice Cliff (2005), and a memoir, Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue: The Story of an Accidental Family (2011).

Additional information

GOR008110582
9780099593096
0099593092
The Button Box: The Story of Women in the 20th Century Told Through the Clothes They Wore by Lynn Knight
Used - Very Good
Paperback
Vintage Publishing
2017-03-09
320
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - The Button Box