Books by Claire Wilcox

Handbags: The Making of a Museum

by Adam Phillips, Claire Wilcox, Judith Clark, Caroline Evans, Amy de la Haye

An exploration of the role of the handbag in the history of culture, fashion, and material production

The history of the handbag—its design, how it has been made, used, and worn—reveals something essential about women's lives over the past 500 years. Perhaps the most universal item of fashionable adornment, it can also be elusive, an object of desire, secrecy, and even fear. Handbags explores these rich histories and multiple meanings.
This book features specially commissioned photographs of an extraordinary, newly formed collection of fashionable handbags that date from the 16th century to the present day. It has been acquired for exhibition in the first museum devoted to the handbag, in Seoul, South Korea. The project is a commission undertaken by experimental exhibition-maker Judith Clark, whose innovative practices are revealed in Handbags.
Essays by leading fashion historians and an acclaimed psychoanalyst investigate the history of gesture, the psychoanalysis of bags, and the museum's state-of-the-art mannequins and archive cabinets. In order to preserve the words that describe the unique qualities of each bag, a terminology of handbags has been compiled.

Published in association with the Simone Handbag Museum, Seoul

Patch Work: WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE

by Claire Wilcox

WINNER OF THE 2021 PEN ACKERLEY PRIZE

“As skillful and oblique in its structure as the precious gowns she describes.” -Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, “Best Books of the Year”

An expert and intimate exploration of a life in clothes: their memories and stories, enchantments and spells.

A linen sheet, smooth with age. A box of buttons, mother-of-pearl and plastic, metal and glass, rattling and untethered. A hundred-year-old pin, forgotten in a hem. Fragile silks and fugitive dyes, fans and crinolines, and the faint mark on leather from a buckle now lost.

Claire Wilcox has worked as a curator in Fashion at the Victoria & Albert Museum for most of her working life. Down cool, dark corridors and in quiet store rooms, she and her colleagues care for, catalogue and conserve clothes centuries old, the inscrutable remnants of lives long lost to history; the commonplace or remarkable things that survive the bodies they once encircled or adorned.

In Patch Work, Wilcox deftly stitches together her dedicated study of fashion with the story of her own life lived in and through clothes. From her mother's black wedding suit to the swirling patterns of her own silk kimono, her memoir unfolds in luminous prose the spellbinding power of the things we wear: their stories, their secrets, their power to transform and disguise and acts as portals to our pasts; the ways in which they measure out our lives, our gains and losses, and the ways we use them to write our stories.

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up

by Claire Wilcox, Circe Henestrosa

Claire Wilcox and Circe Henestrosa’s Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up presents a unique window into the artist’s life.

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), as an artist and a woman, has a unique international appeal. Her instantly recognizable work draws extensively on her life and her extraordinarily personal reflections upon it.

On Kahlo’s death, her husband, Diego Rivera (1886–1957), ordered that her most private possessions be locked away until 15 years after his death. The bathroom in which her belongings were stored in fact remained unopened until 2004. Through this incredible archive, Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up focuses on the personal, combining her prosthetics, jewelry, and clothes with self-portraits, diary entries, and letters to build an intimate portrait of the artist through her possessions, setting this in the context of her political and social beliefs.

Rewire Your Food-Addicted Brain Fight Cravings and Break Free from a High-Sugar, Ultra-Processed Diet Using Neuroscience

by Claire Wilcox

"Our 'druggified' food supply makes us all vulnerable to the problem of compulsive overconsumption. This practical guide, informed by the latest science and decades of clinical experience, is a tutorial in self-compassion as much as a science-help approach to overeating."

--Anna Lembke, MD, New York Times bestselling author of Dopamine Nation



A game-changing approach to overcome food addiction and radically improve your health.

Have you ever wondered why you're addicted to certain foods? Would it shock you to learn that the food industry engineers food products with the express purpose of getting you hooked? With millions wrestling with food addiction, is it any surprise that much of what is meant to sustain us is in fact making us sick? The increasing dependence on unhealthy, ultra-processed foods invites a host of health problems--from obesity and heart disease to diabetes. So, how can you break free from this destructive cycle?

Written by an addiction psychiatrist with decades of experience, this powerful guide combines proven-effective techniques based in addiction and eating disorder treatments to help you overcome the unhealthy food habit, once and for all. In addition to real-world stories from others who have battled food addiction, you'll learn how certain foods can actually alter your neurochemistry--lighting up reward centers in your brain just like nicotine, alcohol, and other drugs. Most importantly, you'll discover how to move beyond the self-blame, shame, and internalized stigma that is associated with food addiction, so you can start taking steps toward lasting recovery.

If you're trapped in a never-ending cycle of yo-yo dieting, crazy cravings, and binging (with or without purging), this evidence-based guide can help you get back on track. It's time to say goodbye to "big food," and the packaged products that keep you from nourishing and enriching both your body and mind. This powerful book can help you get started today.