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Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize: Interview with Emma Treleaven (2023 winner)
By Sarah S Pipkin, on 19 April 2024
Emma Treleaven, PhD candidate at the London College of Fashion, won the Anthony Davis Book Collecting Prize in 2023 with her collection My Own Two Hands: Books and Ephemera About Making Dress and Textiles Before 1975. She also won the Antequarian Booksellers Association’s National Book Collecting Prize in 2023 with the same collection. She spoke to Special Collections about her experience book collecting and applying for the prize.
Emma Treleaven, 2023 Anthony Davis Student Book Collecting Prize winner
Tell us a bit about yourself and your collection!
I’m a PhD student at London College of Fashion, but I’m also a museum curator and a maker. I collect books and ephemera about how people made clothing and textiles in a domestic setting in the past, primarily before 1975. I use my collection to learn how to make things, to inspire me, and to preserve knowledge and skills I think are important.
How did your collection begin? Has it changed over time?
My collection began when I was learning how to sew in secondary school. I wanted to sew dresses from 1950s patterns, and my teacher gave me a book about dressmaking from the 50s which totally changed my perspective on making and social history. When I moved to the UK to study Fashion History and Theory at Central Saint Martins, I started to collect books about how clothing and textiles were made in the past more seriously, and this evolved into my collection today. My focus has shifted a little bit a few times, but overall it’s stuck to materials women (for the most part) used to learn how to make dress and textiles before 1975. Within that, it depends on what I want to learn to make at the time. For example, my PhD is about shoemakers and shoemaking, so I am collecting more about that at the minute.
What was your process for discovering and choosing the theme and what to add to your collection?
I think the ’theme’ of my collection really chose me. There was no where else to learn the techniques used to make dress and textiles from the past, which is what I’m passionate about, in a wide ranging, affordable way, except in the materials I started collecting. As these materials tended to be in danger of being lost because they are generally printed on cheap paper and used until they are in poor condition, I also started collecting to preserve the books, and the knowledge in them, from being lost.
My collection is a working one, so I actually use the books and ephemera to learn how to make historic dress and textiles. What I add to my collection is centred around this. If I want to learn about bobbin lace making or leather glove making that month, I will search out more materials to do with those subjects. But that preservation aspect also comes into it, if someone offers me something that I am not necessarily interested in making right now, say, 19th century tatting, then I might acquire it if I’m worried about the technique or physical publication disappearing.
A portion of Emma’s collection
Did anything surprise you in the process of collecting?
What some people value others really don’t. I can get so excited about a book or a pattern or a piece of ephemera, and it’s strange to think that the dealer or another collector won’t see the beauty or importance of it like I do. What I collect tends to be of little interest to other collectors, which I think makes it all the more important to preserve, but it also means that I can generally get what I am looking for at an affordable price as few others are interested. So that lack of interest helps my student budget of farther, which is great, but I still find it surprising when others don’t see the beauty of these materials.
What made you want to apply for the book collecting prize?
I think I just really appreciated that something like this exists. I really love books, so it’s wonderful that a prize to support students with book collections of any topic is out there. I also couldn’t pass up such a lovely prize, adding to UCL’s collection and my own was too good an opportunity to pass up!
Did you encounter any challenges during your application process? How did you overcome them?
Pulling my collection together so I could write my bibliography was an unexpected challenge! My collection was stored all over my home, and a lot of the publications are quite small, so finding it all when I was writing my application was surprisingly tricky.
Emma’s collection on display at a 2023 Rare Books Club session
What was your favourite part of the application process?
Doing the application made me look at my collection in a different way, which was nice. I suppose I had known I was ‘collecting’ before then, but having to pull everything out, evaluate it, list it, and really define what I am a collector of was really fun! It’s made me think about why I collect, how I use my collection, and how to be more strategic about it in future.
What advice would you give someone hoping to get into book collecting?
Whatever you are interested in, there will be a book about it out there for you, even on a student budget. I find book fairs to be a really friendly and fun way to browse and learn about the book world, and because there are so many dealers with very diverse stock all in one place you are bound to find something that catches your interest!
Thank you to Emma for talking about her experiences applying to the Anthony Davis Student Book Collecting Prize! You can read more about her collection at:
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Winners of the 2023 Anthony Davis Student Book Collecting Prize.
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The ABA National Book Collecting Prize 2023 Winner: Emma Treleaven.
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My Own Two Hands: An Interview with Emma Treleaven.
