Anne Grosfilley, African Wax Print Textiles

Abstract

make in this book is a methodological one. They aim to demonstrate the utility of what they term ‘object-attentive’ scholarship by examining extant objects alongside more ‘traditional’ written and pictorial sources. They do this very effectively, particularly in their analysis of the textiles, stitching, marking, mending and signs of wear found in and on surviving tie-on pockets, which provide information about the material features of and practices surrounding pockets not recorded elsewhere. The book is liberally illustrated in full colour, and the bibliography contains a list of the numerous pockets the authors studied in public collections, a practice that will hopefully become more widespread in future dress histories. In sum, The Pocket is an enlightening and engaging account of both the use of tie-on pockets and women’s material lives in the long eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is to be highly commended.