Victoria Finlay: How Fabrics are woven into our lives

Victoria Finlay's latest book Fabric looks at our relationship with textiles: from woven barkcloth in Papua New Guinea to the famous tweed of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Finlay considers how 'woven' fabric is into our histories, vocabularies and everyday lives - from our very livelihoods to its use for sheer opulence, with plenty of exploitation and environmental waste along the way. Part of the story is Finlay's own journey through grief for her recently deceased parents. Finlay is also the author of Colour: travels through the paintbox and the former arts editor of the South China Morning Post. I asked her about why she wanted to write about fabric.