The Easthampton Council on Aging Book Club meets at the Council on Aging every other month on the third Thursday, from 2 – 3:30pm. We provide copies of each title for participants to check out. Read the book and drop-in at the ECOA for the discussion. Visit the ECOA Book Club page for a list of dates and titles, with links to each in the catalog.
Pick up a copy of the book at the Library. Please RSVP at tinyurl.com/ewml-women-clothes
Join us for an informal discussion about how women use fashion/clothing as a means of self-expression, self-care, as armor or disguise, to reinvent themselves, to transform how others see them, to communicate, or to enhance confidence and individuality. Please book-mark your favorite sections of “Women in Clothes,” and share your thoughts about your relationship with clothing, shopping, and what influences your daily ritual of getting dressed.
“Women in Clothes,” the 2014 book edited by the novelist-critics Sheila Heti and Heidi Julavits and the artist Leanne Shapton, is a compilation of lessons, fears and wishes. It pushes against the prevailing rules that have governed women’s self-presentation for thousands of years.
As mentioned in this 2014 New York Times article, Sheila Weiss writes, “The book began as a survey consisting of an “ever-evolving” list of questions that the editors sent out to more than 600 women… The questions are provocative and psychological. They suggest that a closet is an archive of emotion. The questions also resist the idea, commonly held, that paying too much attention to dress is frivolous… Clothing is as much a means for defiance and privacy as it is a vehicle for pleasing self-presentation.”
Susan W. Berry MS, MFA, CHC, CIC is a Certified Holistic Health Coach and Certified Personal Style, Wardrobe and Image Consultant. She resides in Easthampton, MA.