![]() ![]() Her first step towards museum life was at university, where she read art history. ![]() The Romans, she says, with their hand-spun wool, were also driven mad by them. Some of this is detailed in Patch Work, an extraordinary mixture of museum work interleaved with memoir - her life told in snapshots of a page or two (not always chronologically), followed by a description of, say, Fortuny dresses, pleated like those worn by Greek goddesses, rolled and then coiled to stop the narrow pink, silver-grey, ivory, black and pale blue pleats of finest silk falling out or a disquisition on clothes moths, which are especially keen on cashmere jumpers. ‘We are caring for the high-quality detritus of the past to understand who we are.’ In short, Professor Wilcox, a fashion intellectual, not only cares about clothes and the materials they are made of, she has a deep interest in their history. She also instigated live catwalk events in the museum and has numerous other distinctions. Among exhibitions she has organised at the museum are Radical Fashion, Vivienne Westwood, The Golden Age of Couture: Paris and London 1947-1957 and Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. She was talking of the textile department of the Victoria & Albert Museum, where she had been senior curator of fashion since 2004. ![]() ![]() Once, someone brought a box of medieval leather shoes and everyone was sent home while a specialist in protective clothing and mask was called in, in case they had come from a plague pit. Sometimes this was a length of Brussels lace, sometimes a gown that could be dated not just to the year but to the season, because the fashion then was known: On the weekly ‘opinions’ afternoons, the public would arrive with carefully wrapped parcels holding items to be identified, writes Claire Wilcox. ![]()
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