If dresses could talk what stories might they tell? This compelling collection of short
stories essays and poems features dress as the structural grounding for autobiographical
accounts from women's lives in Western society. Often personal in nature these dress stories
point unfailingly to matters of social and cultural import. Some of the dresses described
inhabit the popular imagination: the little girl dress the communion dress the school uniform
the prom dress the wedding dress the little black dress and the burial dress. Beyond the
semiotic tactile and visual aspects of the dresses themselves the narratives delve into what
dresses reveal about fundamental aspects of human experience: identity embodiment
relationship and mortality. Bought or made then worn forgotten remembered re-constructed
and re-interpreted each dress offers a new glimpse into how we construct meaning in our daily
lives and how dresses serve to reinforce or resist social structures and cultural
expectations.
