Unfolding the Past, Elizabeth Wilson

In Unfolding the Past, Elizabeth Wilson delivers a stylish and deeply personal memoir that charts her journey from feminist activist and underground‑press writer to pioneering academic in fashion studies. The narrative unfolds like a tailored garment, each chapter—on post‑war dress, bohemian sixties culture and gay liberation—stitching together intimate memory and cultural analysis. As a self‑confessed “salonnière”, Wilson uses her own archives alongside literary and filmic associations from Djuna Barnes to Marlene Dietrich, weaving scholarly insight into lived experience.

Her prose is witty, candid and richly textured: she treats her research as autobiography, revealing the emotional labour behind cataloguing clothes, bohemia, tennis and sexuality. More than a memoir, this is a vibrant meditation on how clothing memories shape life’s meaning. Readers are invited to trace threads of identity across decades, as Wilson deftly shows that fashion is far from frivolous—it’s a language of lived life and personal transformation.

About the Author
Elizabeth Wilson is a trailblazing theorist of fashion and cultural history whose career spans feminist activism, literary writing and pioneering academic work. A former editor for underground magazines like Red Rag and Frendz, she later taught and published widely in dress and mass culture studies. In this memoir, she reveals how research and lived experience are inseparable, tracing the personal origins of her scholarly voice.

Publication date: 2022
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 296
ISBN: 978-1350232594