A Philosophy of Textile: Between Practice and Theory, Catherine Dormor

The author Catherine Dormor invites the reader to slow-look at cloth not simply as material but as thought, language and gesture. She frames textile as a mode of thinking: the seam, the fold, the fraying edge become metaphors and forces, the warp and weft of theory and making entwined. From philosophers such as Plato, Gilles Deleuze and Jacques Derrida (who drew on weaving processes), to artists like Ann Hamilton and Louise Bourgeois (who use needle, thread and textile flows), Dormor draws together theory and craft, thinking and making, in a textured, tactile philosophy.

This beautifully illustrated volume moves through chapters such as Folding, Shimmering Surface, Seaming, Viscous Substance, Fraying and Caressing Subject/Object, exploring how textile behaviour mirrors and triggers philosophical reflection. It is as much a meditation on cloth’s materiality—how it drapes, slips, pulls, bleeds dye, opens at the seam—as it is a call to recognise textile practice as knowledge-making. For the Selvedge reader, it presents cloth as archive, gesture and thought: to wear, to stitch, to reflect.

About the Author
Catherine Dormor is Professor of Textile Practices & Feminisms at the University of Westminster, UK, and Pro Vice-Chancellor and Head of the College of Design, Creative & Digital Industries. Her research operates at the intersection of textile materiality, feminist theory and community-making: how stitch, weave and fray serve as metaphors for identity, belonging and collective practice. She is both practitioner and theorist, with work that spans art, making and writing—her ethos being that textile isn’t just made, but thought.

Publication date: 2022
Publisher:  Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Pages: 160
ISBN: 9781350195837