The language of fashion
Award-winning novelist Linda Grant says that being interested in clothes goes beyond the superficial.
Stephanie Yap
Sun, Mar 09, 2008
The Sunday Times
IF THERE'S any one philosophy British writer Linda Grant, 57, subscribes to, it seems to be the importance of experimentation.
The Orange Prize-winning novelist of When I Lived In Modern Times (2000) says she never plots out her novels before writing them, instead letting the characters and story veer and develop as and where inspiration takes her.
She likens it to how Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo once joked that he simply knocks away the excess marble to reveal the statue within.
'I write to see what happens next. Other writers don't get started till they have plotted out all the chapters, but I would get bored doing that,' she tells LifeStyle recently at the Meritus Mandarin.
Her helter-skelter methodology is reflected in her speech: The bubbly author speaks in rather stream-of-consciousness passages, leaping from anecdote to anecdote and sometimes leaving sentences incomplete.
She was in town last week to promote her fourth and latest book, The Clothes On Their Backs, about a young British woman and her relationship with her notorious slumlord uncle.
| 'The editor of British Vogue, Alexandra Shulman, once said to me that a lot of fashion journalists can't write, and a lot of people who can write aren't interested in fashion or don't want to write about it. So there is this little space for me to have a lot of fun' - On writing about fashion |
| 'I start working as soon as possible after I have woken up. Sometimes I don't even have a shower because I want to keep as close as possible to the dream state' - On writing fiction |
| 'I often know a lot more about the characters than I have told the readers. They need to have full lives, you need to understand what they are doing when they are not on stage' - On creating characters |
The characters' personalities are partially revealed through their relationships with clothes, from the narrator who changes sartorial styles at different points in her life, to her Hungarian Jewish uncle who dresses richly as a way to indicate to others that he has made it in the world.
Indeed, the capricious, fickle world of fashion is something that has always interested Grant, the granddaughter of Jewish immigrants from Poland and Russia who immigrated to Britain in the early part of the 20th century.
'They were immigrants; they came with nothing and didn't speak the language. It was very important to them that you put on a good front to the world,' she says.
'My paternal grandfather's motto was: 'Only the rich can afford cheap shoes.''
She adds that it was the spoils of fashion that put her through the Belvedere Academy, a private all-girls school in Liverpool known for its academic focus.
'My father supplied hairdressers. He made shampoo and perm lotion and was also a wholesaler. So I knew I was getting this blue-stocking education which was coming from hairpins, curlers, shampoo and colour,' says Grant, who received her bachelor's in English from the University of York and did her master's at McMaster University in Canada.
Such is her passion for fashion that the novelist, who is also a freelance features journalist for British newspapers such as The Guardian, is even writing a non-fiction tome titled The Thoughtful Dresser. Scheduled for publication next year, it won't be the usual 'how-to' style book, but a meditation on why people care about what they wear.
'Styles date us and give us an indication of time. When you are a teenager, what you wear is always about rebelling against your parents. Then you grow up and look at old photos of yourself and grimace - you thought you looked fantastic, but you looked absolutely bloody awful,' she says.
The writer, who is unmarried, is unconcerned about being seen as superficial. 'Since 9/11, I have just thought so much about what is this world we are living in, what kind of choices we should make. And I think that because of the seriousness of what happened on that one morning, there is a part of me that wants to say, 'To hell with that, let's just have some fun and talk about clothes',' she says with a wry smile.
Does she have her own fashion philosophy? As expected, Grant - who is wearing a dress from British label Jaeger's 2008 spring/summer collection - says that while she does watch trends, she believes in constant trial and error to find out what suits her.
Still, there are a few age-old fashion tips that even this inveterate experimenter abides by - such as matching your dress with your shoes.
She says with a chuckle: 'Just the other day I was in a restaurant when I realised I was wearing black and silver shoes and carrying a black and gold bag. I was like, 'What have you done, you idiot.'
The Clothes On Their Backs ($29.95 without GST) is LifeStyle's Book of the Month. It is available at major bookstores.
This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Mar 9, 2008.