Patch Work

WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE

By: Claire Wilcox

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Paperback | 5 October 2026

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Paperback
288 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
2.6 x 12.9 x 19.7

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Winner of the 2021 PEN Ackerley Prize

'A strange and mesmerising piece of work' Sunday Times
'An absolute masterpiece' Laura Cumming
'An uncommon delight' Observer

Claire Wilcox has been a curator of fashion at the Victoria and Albert Museum for most of her working life. In Patch Work, she turns her curator's eye to the fabric of life itself, tugging at the threads of memory: a cardigan worn by a child, a tin button box, the draping of a curtain, a pair of cycling shorts, a roll of lace, a pin hidden in a seam. Through these intimate and compelling close-ups, we see how the stories and the secrets of clothes measure out the passage of time, our gains and losses, and the way we use them to unravel and write our histories.

'Effervescent, poetic, puzzle-like ... Wilcox picks at the heartstrings' Financial Times

About the Author

Claire Wilcox has been Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A since 2004, where she has curated exhibitions including Radical Fashion, The Art and Craft of Gianni Versace, Vivienne Westwood, The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947–1957, Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, and, as co-curator, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, and instigated Fashion in Motion (live catwalk events in the museum) in 1999. She is Professor in Fashion Curation at the London College of Fashion and is on the editorial board of Fashion Theory: The Journal of Dress, Body & Culture. She lives in South London.

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