The selection of artists: some heavy hitters but I imagine many will be new to you if you are, like me, casually interested in art & aesthetics. This is a good thing. Barbara Hepworth photographed in St Ives in 1957 Photo: Paul Popper/Popperfoto via Getty Images/Getty Images

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 Look at the fabric on his body: spotless. Now look at the curtains. Bacon used them to wipe his hands. Those hand marks go so high! What would the clothes he painted in have looked like? Why doesn’t he want us to see them? The beauty of being a fashion critic is that it’s very different from being an art critic or a theater critic. If I were to review the Venice Biennale that just opened, for example, anyone in the world who has the financial means can travel to Venice to see the Biennale. So you’ve got a direct link to something human beings can actually do. The thing about the fashion show is that if I reviewed the Prada show, for example, then in six months’ time, certain pieces from that collection will be produced, but by no means all; with some brands, hardly any pieces that are shown are produced. Maybe one person that reads the review might actually buy something six months later. There is no immediate call to action of any kind with the reader. I also loved it for that reason, but the downside of that is that the garments you’re looking at have very often only been worn by one model, once, in a fashion show. We talk about these garments as if they’ve all been worn, but we’re talking about them in a language which actually is conjecture. I really wanted to think about garments that have been bought and worn and entered into someone’s life and to see what we can learn from that. Moreover, the book offers a timely perspective on clothing itself. Porter is one of the U.K.’s most respected fashion writers, who — in his former role as menswear critic for the Financial Times— has been credited with championing and nurturing the careers of designers including Craig Green and Nasir Mazhar. Yet the book pointedly turns away from the runway.I remember seeing pictures of Francis Bacon’s studio years ago and being repulsed by how messy it was. Porter shares pictures of Bacon taken in his studio in different times where he is always photographed spotless, wearing clean clothes. Porter remarks :

Not all artists are so open about revealing their painting garments. I’m obsessed with photos of Francis Bacon in his studio not covered in paint. He lived and worked in chaos: emotional, physical, psychological. If all around was turmoil, why did he not show it in what he wore? Artists live a different way. The work of an artist is not office based. It breaks from the rhythm of 9 to 5, weekdays and weekends. It is a continual push for self-expression. Artists create their own circumstances, their studios becoming self-contained worlds. Their work can question, or it can reinforce, generally accepted ways of being. What artists wear can be a tool in their practice. Their clothing can tell of their desire for another mode of living or, some- times, their conscious subscription to the status quo. Artists are often revered for their style. I have friends who pin photographs of artists around their mirrors as inspiration -snapshots of Georgia O’Keeffe, Barbara Hepworth. Fashion houses regularly plunder these images, copying their outfits as part of the relentless fashion- season cycle. It seems logical that an artist should have an eye for clothing, connected with the visual creativity of their work. When we really look at images of artists, we realize it goes deeper than that. There is more to what artists wear than just an appreciable way with clothing.Porter suggests, then a lens through which to examine how our relationship with clothing shifted over the last century. The book careers through almost every facet of modern clothing, from sportswear to denim, workwear to luxury fashion. Tailoring, in particular, receives significant discussion. “I was interested in suits as a symbol of white male power,” says Porter. “But I was much more interested in what artists did with that symbol.” You’ve spoken before about fashion criticism being somewhat removed from how people actually wear clothes, because you’re only ever writing about them up to the point of production. Were you curious to think more about what happens when those clothes go out into the world? Charlie Porter's prose is patient and clean as a bone. His arena of inquiry is simple but endlessly fascinating. It reminds me in many ways of John Berger's Ways of Seeing: public-facing, image-rich, but still incisive. He draws the reader in with questions: "Can you see what's happening here?" "But look, what's there?" I love this kind of art criticism, one that speaks not 'at' an object, but 'to' it, 'with' it. One that circles around an object (in this case, a garment, not an artwork), unravelling its historical conditions, its aesthetic allure, its form, its function, its sacredness, its sentimentality, all in equal measure, as one would unwind ribbons from a maypole.

A liberation and a joy, beautifully written and brilliantly thought. What Artists Wear is at once a revelatory account of how art is made and an electrifying investigation into the relationship between clothes and autonomy, freedom and power' Olivia Laing Reading it really does remind you of Ways of Seeing by John Berger, the feel of the book, the layout of text and image. At the time, I was writing about catwalk shows where the garments had only been made to wear once and no one had lived in them. But it became more and more clear to me that there were many more interesting things to say about clothing rather than just up to the point of production. The average older woman’s clothes are appalling’: sculptor Barbara Hepworth in St Ives, 1957. Photograph: Paul Popper/Popperfoto/Getty Images

very non offensive for your conservative grandma to read *coffee book table? Christmas gift? Is it trying to be “A-political”?? Fashion is cruel to those who are older,” he says. “Which is mad because the population is ageing and older people don’t just stop being engaged in clothing or interested in what it can do for the body.” In the time of punk, and in my time, as well, garments were a way you transmitted information about yourself and your interests—what you cared about, what you believed in. Garments no longer need to have that performative function. All 16-year-old boys in Britain wear Palace. I’m obviously generalizing, but queer kids, skater kids, posh kids, poor kids—everyone wears Palace. How do you delineate the different groups of people wearing Palace? Clothing is no longer used in the same very simple, tribal way that I used it in my time. Now, it’s become much more complex in it’s role, so I actually think clothing has become more sophisticated. It’s not dumbed down—the messages that are being sent out are more sophisticated, and weirder, and more complex than just you’re goth, you’re this, you’re that." But to sum up and give an example, this was chapter about Sarah Lucas- she lives in the countryside, so now she wears the same clothes longer, she wears and exhibits her Dr. Martins- that means she is a badass, loves oversize and male clothes, prefers shirts over T-shirts 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 *