Costume Through the Ages: Over 1400 Illustrations (Dover Fashion and Costumes)

I own a vintage clothing and costume rental shop. We have created tabs on some of the different era's shown in this book and now it's a perfect reference book for when a customer comes in and needs to dress for a 1903 car show, or a Titanic themed myster dinner party, etc. The drawings were nicely detailed and are even inspiring me to make my own pieces. We didn't need descriptions, just pictures and dates, and that's what you have here. The one draw back was throughout the entire book only fashion from the higher class is depicted. No peasants, middle class or lower status depictions at all. As a costume shop, those would have been helpful to have as well. I still thought this book was well worth the price!

the illustrations are not very good, and the writing is minimum but the information is still very interesting to me.

While the pictures are 2D sketches of actual paintings, sculptures, fashion plates, etc. and are not the best quality, I love this book for a quick reference. If I'm costume designing from a certain time period, I love using this book to glance through for ideas saying, I like those sleeves, or I'll use that cuff. If you're looking for a in depth look at fashion and details and lots of commentary, it's not the book for you. But if you're looking for a great priced reference of fashion through the ages, then it's perfect. I've had many professors for my costume design classes, historical fashion classes, etc who have required this as a text book.

They say up front that they (the authors) purposely did not put in any writing to as not to sway our view of the clothing. Alas, that means if one does not know period clothing from LOTS of different periods, one will not be able to identify items. Still, lovely drawings. It will make a fine adult coloring book! (Yes, I'm serious) :-)

FOUND IT VERY AWKWARD TO FLIP BACK AND FORTH FROM IMAGES TO DESCRIPTIONS LISTED IN BACK OF BOOK. THAT PLUS ALTHOUGH 'VERB AGE' IN BACK NEEDS APPARENTLY BE BRIEF - IT IS WAAAY TO BRIEF UNLESS FAMILIAR WITH THE VARIOUS PERIOD

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Lovely detailed diagrams, lots of illustrations packed into a slender volume, a great aid for costumes for period plays, historical stories and just for creating new designs using a little bit of 'something old'.

Terrible illustrations. 2nd rate publ.ication. Wasn't what I thought it would be.

this was a little disappointing. the pictures were all copies of painting or statues and muddled up on a page. it didn't seem to be in chronological order and in places was inaccurate. The drawing were vague and not very detailed. I only wanted a book to help me describe costume from different ages in the past, but it wasn't as helpful as the john Peacock book.

Fashion details of bygone times all illustrated in monochrome, I am interested in fashion and history, I would like to create a miniature costume from the past

I found this book a little disappointing in that many of the illustrations were unclear and it was hard to see the details I was interested in. Many were drawings of statues. I had hoped for a book with clear illustrations which would be easy to translate into the miniature costumes I hope to produce, but that is not what this book had ot offer.

Bought this book to help with an art project (GCSE), Both my daughter and her teacher were impressed with the quality of the illustrations, which inspired a host of ideas for costume design

Bought to help with the making of costumes for an amateur dramatic group. Has been very useful in showing what things should look like