Books
Worn Stories
Everyone has a memoir in miniature in at least one piece of clothing. In the New York Times best seller WORN STORIES (2014), Emily Spivack has collected over sixty of these clothing-inspired narratives from cultural figures and talented storytellers. First-person accounts range from the everyday to the extraordinary, such as artist Marina Abramovic on the boots she wore to walk the Great Wall of China; musician Rosanne Cash on the purple shirt that belonged to her father; and fashion designer Cynthia Rowley on the Girl Scout sash that informed her business acumen. Other contributors include Greta Gerwig, Heidi Julavits, John Hodgman, Brandi Chastain, Marcus Samuelsson, Piper Kerman, Maira Kalman, Simon Doonan, Albert Maysles, Susan Orlean, Andy Spade, Paola Antonelli, David Carr, Andrew Kuo, and more. By turns funny, tragic, poignant, and celebratory, WORN STORIES offers a revealing look at the clothes that protect us, serve as a uniform, assert our identity, or bring back the past—clothes that are encoded with the stories of our lives.
Worn In New York
The boots a passenger had on when his plane landed on the Hudson River.
The tank top Andy Warhol’s assistant wore to one of their nightclub outings together.
The jacket a taxi driver put on to feel safe as he worked the night shift.
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These and over sixty other clothing-inspired narratives make up WORN IN NEW YORK (2017). In these first-person accounts, contributors in and out of the public eye share surprising, personal, wild, poignant, and funny stories behind a piece of clothing that reminds them of a significant moment of their New York lives. WORN IN NEW YORK offers a contemporary cultural history of the city—its changing identity, temper, and tone, and its irrepressible vitality—by paying tribute to these well-loved clothes and the people who wore them.
The book includes contributions from Adam Horovitz, Amy Heckerling, Andre Royo, Anna Sui, Aubrey Plaza, Catherine Opie, Coco Rocha, Dick Cavett, Eileen Myles, Fab 5 Freddy, Gay Talese, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, JD Samson, Jenji Kohan, Jenna Lyons, Kyp Malone, Lena Dunham, Pee Wee Kirkland, Thelma Golden, Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.