Charlie Porter is a writer, fashion critic and curator. He has written for the Financial Times, the Guardian, The New York Times, GQ, Luncheon, i-D and Fantastic Man, and has been described as one of the most influential fashion journalists of his time. Porter co-runs the London queer rave Chapter 10, and is a trustee of the Friends of Arnold Circus, where he is also a volunteer gardener. He lives in London.
A triumph. I could read Charlie Porter's books all day long. He
makes us see a subject we thought we knew so well from a completely
different angle; in writing that is deeply researched, but
inviting, warm, and full of personality
*Katy Hessel*
Excellent … Porter’s generous, empathetic eye feels like a
corrective for the more salacious historical depictions of the
Bloomsbury Group’s affairs … Bring No Clothes doesn’t just
introduce a new frame of thinking, it adds a fresh layer of
humanity to the collective
*Independent*
Charlie Porter is a magician, a radical historian who has pulled
away all the threadbare myths about Bloomsbury, using clothes as a
way of revealing the vulnerable bodies and wild new ideas of Woolf
and her circle. In his hands, what people wear becomes an
astoundingly rich way of thinking about love and grief, art-making
and intimacy - and above all about old power structures and how to
upend them. Bring No Clothes is at once an enriching account of the
past and a primer for the future: a guide to how we too can clothe
our bodies for freedom
*Olivia Laing*
A call to arms from the first page - it's thrilling and radical
*Chantal Joffe*
Charlie Porter applies a literary critic’s close reading to the
clothes of the early twentieth century, unpicking philosophical
texts from their textures. Bring No Clothes offers a way of
recalibrating the world by understanding the tensions that underpin
and overdetermine it through the ways we dress. With curiosity and
contemporaneity, he finds in the Bloomsbury Group’s experiments in
intimacy a queer possibility for the way we live today
*Sam Buchan-Watts, author of Path Through Wood*
Spot-on ... the way the [Bloomsbury] circle thought about clothes
was part of a wider revolt ... Thanks to his access to the contents
of several Bloomsbury wardrobes, together with a trove of
previously unseen photographs, Porter is able to provide a detailed
illustration of how "Make it new" played out on the material
level
*Guardian*
One of the best books about Bloomsbury!
*Maggie Humm, author and Vice Chair of the Virginia Woolf
Society*
Fascinating
*BBC Front Row*
Unlocks the Bloomsbury Group’s wardrobes to expose the intricate
interplay between attire, liberation and control
*Vogue*
A deep dive into the wardrobes of the Bloomsbury Group. Behind
colour choices and hemlines are fascinating insights into their
bodies and minds
*Monocle*
Porter clearly enjoys [the Bloomsbury Group’s] company – exploring
how Virginia Woolf’s loose, long-line garments, John Maynard
Keynes’s ‘soft tailoring,’ Vanessa Bell’s wildly colourful
home-made dresses, photographs of a naked Duncan Grant, and the
loosening of EM Forster’s buttoned-up suits all demonstrate the
radicalism of a group of people determined to live differently
*New Statesman*
Spot-on ... the way the [Bloomsbury] circle thought about clothes
was part of a wider revolt ... Thanks to his access to the contents
of several Bloomsbury wardrobes, together with a trove of
previously unseen photographs, Porter is able to provide a detailed
illustration of how "Make it new" played out on the material
level
*Guardian*
Fresh, empathetic … personal as much as intellectual … Bring No
Clothes might be read as the manifesto of a queer human
*Times Literary Supplement*
- - Praise for What Artists Wear
*-*
Brilliant, loving, visually incisive
*Hilton Als*
Compelling
*Apollo*
Revelatory
*Guardian*
An insightful account ... whether offering visual analysis or
social observation, Porter writes with clarity and wit
*Frieze*
A fascinating exploration of the clothing worn by the rebels, rule
breakers and outliers of the artistic world, and what it means to
live in it ... The book defies convention ... Porter's curiosity is
infectious
*Esquire*
Eclectic, invigorating ... the chapters devoted to female artists
make for the most fascinating reading, their clothes liberating
them by giving them permission to be different
*Observer*
Unique, intelligent and enlightening, super interesting and so well
researched. It is rare indeed to come across a book that not only
captures the imagination, but informs and amuses at the same time.
Each turn of the page is a surprising delight. Perhaps what is most
striking about this book is its authenticity ... Charlie Porter's
seriousness and genuineness, coupled with his off-kilter sense of
humour, not forgetting his huge talent, seep through the entire
production. Not a fake nor pompous note anywhere. This is simply
the real article, just like Charlie
*Adrian Joffe, President of Comme des Garçons*
A roving, intimate analysis of the clothes that inform art
*AnOther Magazine*
Wonderful ... I read it in one delicious gulp. An important
page-turner
*Jennifer Higgie, author of The Mirror and the Palette*
Delicious ... What Artists Wear can be enjoyed by everyone,
regardless of your art or fashion knowledge ... Porter shares each
anecdote with the confidence and clarity of a story teller, weaving
memories into the book
*Glass*
Timely ... intimate ... A leisurely, contemplative journey through
the art world of the 20th Century, as shown through the medium of
the artists' own clothes
*Hypebeast*
Brilliant and unexpected... What Artists Wear approaches fashion in
a wholly different way
*Showstudio*
Personal and brimming with anecdotes ...Porter explores the
intrinsic connections between artists and their choice of clothing
with agility, nuance and insatiable curiosity... His diverse
curatorial eye holds both geographic and historical breadth
*A Magazine Curated By*
A clarion call to examine not only the clothes of artists but also
our own
*The Art Newspaper*
Manual and manifesto - a fabulous and interesting read
*Lauren Laverne*
Unexpected, lushly illustrated ... As a connoisseur of the
lived-in, Porter delights at Lee Krasner's paint-spattered slippers
and the tactile richness of Alberto Giacometti's rumpled suit
*V&A Magazine*
As he cycles through the lives of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sarah
Lucas, Martine Syms, and Joseph Beuys, Porter's deep dive is a
tender report on the legacies we leave behind and the clothes that
accompany us along the way
*Dazed Books of the Year*
Inquisitive and insightful, Porter's skillful dissection of the
historical context, social commentary, and personal symbolism
behind each artist is a pleasure to get lost in
*Publishers Weekly*
Unique, wide-ranging... Style guru Charlie Porter takes us on a
voyage of discovery
*Creative Boom*
Porter captures the various 'archetypes' associated with artists.
He emphasises the shift from the 'codification of patriarchy to the
breaking of the canon
*The Art Newspaper*
Clothes can be a prison. But Porter makes a powerful argument that
they offer freedom too, to work against the structures "that
control what we all wear
*Times Literary Supplement*
A call to arms from the first page - it's thrilling and radical
*Chantal Joffe*
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