He makes us see a subject we thought we knew so well from a completely different angle in writing that is deeply researched but inviting warm and full of personality Katy HesselCharlie Porter is a magician Olivia Laing Why do we wear what we wear To answer this question we must go back and unlock the wardrobes of the early twentieth century when fashion as we know it was born.In Bring No Clothes acclaimed fashion writer Charlie Porter brings us face to face with six members of the Bloomsbury Groupthe collective of creatives and thinkers who were in the vanguard of a social and sartorial revolution. Each of them offers fresh insight into the constraints and possibilities of fashion today from the stifling repression of E. M. Forsters top buttons to the creativity of Vanessa Bells wayward hems from the sheer pleasure of Ottoline Morrells lavish dresses to the clashing selfconsciousness of Virginia Woolfs orange stockings from Duncan Grants liberated play with nudity to John Maynard Keyness power play in the traditional suit. As Porter carefully unpicks what they wore and how they wore it we see how clothing can be a means of artistic intellectual and sexual liberation or conversely a tool for patriarchal control.As he travels through libraries archives attics and studios Porter uncovers new evidence about his subjects revealing them in a thrillingly intimate vivid new light. And as he begins making his own clothing his own perspective on fashionand on lifestarts to change. In the end he shows we should all bring no clothes embracing not just a new way with fashion but a new philosophy of livingone which activates the connections between the way we dress and the way we think act and love. Now with a new Afterword by the author