• The Endless Garment

The Endless Garment

by Marguerite Pigeon

October 26, 2021 | ISBN 978-1-989496-37-4 | 120 Pages

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With equal parts love of the art form and social critique, Marguerite Pigeon’s new epic poem ranges over time and space through several poetic collections that delve into the history and impact of fashion. Guided, and haunted, by a series of ghosts, from Coco Chanel to Gypsy Rose Lee to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Pigeon's narrator moves through the floors of a grand existential department store, comprehending, reinventing and questioning her approach to, and understanding of, fashion

Advance Praise

"Divided into seasonal and functional sections like a glossy magazine’s contents page,  Marguerite Pigeon’s 'pocket epic' miniaturizes the speaker’s epic obsession with fashion. She realizes she shouldn’t want to 'go shopping' – the waste, the child labour, the cruelty, the illusion – but in the end, she once again owns her endless fascination, pleasure, and ambivalence. The strong tactility of Pigeons’s language – which invokes both texture and fabrication – makes for a candid exploration of the transformative effect of clothing, beyond fashion and beyond the perennial critique of fashion.” – Sharon Thesen, author of The Good Bacteria and The Receiver 

“Dantean in scope, The Endless Garment takes us to the paradise and underworld of fashion in a marvelous symphony of fabrics, cuts, and textures. The journey is exhilarating and unforgettable, and we emerge with much insight into the cloth and the weaver of our lives.” – Meredith Quartermain, author of Recipes from the Red Planet and Lullabies in the Real World

Excerpt

Read an excerpt from The Endless Garment.

Events with Marguerite Pigeon

    • Women's Work and Fashion: The Living History of Women (Marguerite Pigeon, All Lit Up, 22/10/2021)
      "Dress was slow, bound to a specific place and people. Fashion was fast. It travelled. And it sold itself as choice."
    • Marguerite Pigeon, poet and author, in her own words (Gilbert Le Gras, Gilbert Le Gras Communications blog, 24/09/2021)
      "When I lived in Toronto in my 20s, I would visit fancy stores to touch the exquisite fabrics and see, in real life, the clothes that were in the pages of the magazines. It was almost too much to bear."

  • Marguerite Pigeon writes poetry and fiction. Her previous books are Inventory (Anvil Press), Some Extremely Boring Drives (NeWest) and Open Pit (NeWest). Untangling her arm’s-length preoccupation with clothes has been an odyssey. Spiritually northern Ontarian, she lives in Vancouver, where she works as a freelance editor and writer through her business, Carrier Communications.