Bring No Clothes : Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion

"All of the books I’ve selected showcase different forms of creativity. They show the many ways in which we display to others who we are and how we experience the world. This can even be through different things like makeup, as we saw with the example of Renaissance women, or as Charlie Porter writes, through clothes. He focuses on the early 20th century Bloomsbury group of artists, six literary and artistic figures, and uses their example to open up a discussion about dress. What we wear is so linked to our creativity and how we’re getting ourselves across to others. The members of Bloomsbury were all artists, but they were showcasing their art also in the way they dressed, which was an important way of marking out who they were, and who they wanted to be in society. The Bloomsbury group weren’t the only artists engaged with creative expression through clothes. Think of the Surrealists, for example, and Dali taking his pet anteater for a walk. Whether visual artists or creatives of a different sort, dressing can be a form of performance art."