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

An ingenious tour of domestic and social history over the last century (Guardian) - the story of women in the twentieth century told through the clothes they wore 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.

About the Author :
Lynn Knight was born in Derbyshire and lives in London. The women of her family passed on many stories along with beaded bags and buttoned gauntlets, and fostered her interest in the texture and narratives of women's lives. She is the author of the biography Clarice Cliff (2005), a memoir, Lemon Sherbet and Dolly Blue- The Story of an Accidental Family (2011), and The Button Box- The story of women in the 20th century, told through the clothes they wore (2016). Miss Burnham and the Loose Thread is her first novel.

Review :
A charming work of social history 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. 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. 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. 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. An unusual and irresistibly delightful account of more than a century’s worth of women’s lives… This is a book to make you smile, a story luminous with nostalgia… Delicious gem of a book. [Knight] quotes like a dream, cherry-picking bon mots from sources far, wide and delightful... There are plenty of curious and quirky details. A sweeping look at how women’s clothing has developed as our place in society has evolved… A delight. Broader social history is approached through the rich, vivid stories… These buttons…tell an intimate story of changing times. Each trinket of the past comes to life, giving a nice nostalgic and informative look into the history of fashion, the Great War and even a few comical anecdotes on sex and relationships.