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A review by shanaqui
The Button Box: The Story of Women in the 20th Century Told Through the Clothes They Wore by Lynn Knight
informative
slow-paced
3.0
I had very fond memories of this book, so I'm not quite sure why I found it so tedious this time. Maybe non-fiction just doesn't reread that well, but also I noticed that there's so much namedropping without context. Who is this person, why do I care? Did you mention them five chapters ago and I'm supposed to remember their relevance? Or is this your great-aunt's best friend again?
I love the idea of microhistory, of using something like a box of buttons to tell the story of fashions and women's place in society, and I think the book is actually pretty successful at that. I remember adoring it, and probably even giving it five stars. I'm not 100% sure what happened this time, since I was expecting a comfortable reread of facts I already largely know (which is not a thing that ever bothers me), but it didn't work out that way.
I love the idea of microhistory, of using something like a box of buttons to tell the story of fashions and women's place in society, and I think the book is actually pretty successful at that. I remember adoring it, and probably even giving it five stars. I'm not 100% sure what happened this time, since I was expecting a comfortable reread of facts I already largely know (which is not a thing that ever bothers me), but it didn't work out that way.