IDA TAAVITSAINEN

IDA

TAAVITSAINEN

The Memory of My Wardrobe

Photo book
Published by Booth-Clibborn Editions 2014
ISBN 978-1-86154-346-2
112pp, 60 images
Hardback
27 x 33.4 cm

The Memory of My Wardrobe is a photo book about the relationship between clothes and memories. It’s a visual history and a memoir told through the clothes I wear and have inherited from members of my family as well as from friends. I became became utterly fascinated by all the potential stories behind the hand-me-downs in my wardrobe, after seeing a glamorous photograph of my grandmother wearing the tweed suit that she had just given me.

“The quiet and slightly eerie photographs in the book take the reader on a journey through time from the garments original owners to the photographer who wears them now.
Though she did not know or does not remember all the people, wearing their clothes has made her closer to her relatives and helped her understand how their bodies might have looked and felt. These garments were in direct contact with their bodies, touched their skins, just as they are touching Taavitsainen’s now.
The Memory of My Wardrobe is a family and a fashion history, as well a family album without any people in it.”