Worth a Thousand Words

As a child of the 1960s, with a diehard tie‑dye dependency, I’ll never be mistaken for a fashion plate. Still, I recently found myself inside a shop in downtown Halifax that sells “refined European garments with an authentic Canadian sensibility.” There, on the boutique’s austere, cream-coloured walls, I noticed a framed black and white photograph of Toni Morrison.

Intrigued, I asked a clerk about the image of the Nobel laureate — resplendent in a black jacket and white blouse, with a dark scarf draped like a man’s tie around her collar. “Our clothes are designed for independent, working women who take charge of their lives and accomplish great things,” she told me. “Ms. Morrison epitomized the message.”

The shop’s tailored tuxedo dresses, linen jackets, and tapered pants were beyond my budget. There was no tie‑dye in the mix. But, bedazzled by the photo, I later leafed through Morrison’s Language as Liberation, published posthumously earlier this...