Customer Reviews

400 Years of Fashion

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

100 years of Fashion was an excellent read for the more scholarly-minded costumer in need of an accurate source book for their historical costuming. Although it provided plenty of close up pictures and trim details about the garments profiled in the book, it didn't cover sufficient enough details about the garment's construction for one to reconstruct a replica from this book alone. I highly suggest owning this book as an addition to one's library of period sources for research, but if you need a book on how to actually construct a period garment, I suggest using a Janet Arnold book.

I was very pleased with this book. It is all about the costume (dress) collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The book shows both color and black and white photos of virtually every costume on display with detailed captions (a hole section is nothing but photos and descriptions of the collection). The photos are amazing. The book covers the years in which the garments were made as well as the history surrounding each item. It is one of the most accurate references you can find on historical costume. I highly recommend it.

Colored and black & white plates from the historical dress collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. William Collins, 1984. 8 1/2x11 in. softcover. Many plates are full-page and color, and high-quality paper was used. Construction details and historical annotations are provided. Discussion of the fashion background of each piece is provided.

This isn't a modern, glossy style book with lots of coloured pictures. It's printed in 1984 and very much of that era with most images in black and white. Good for anyone interested in costume history with some very beautiful garments. Just not a big and splashy production.

I'm hoping the Victoria and Albert will eventually do another one because their collection is superb and this one really doesn't do it justice. (Although I imagine the book probably would have been pretty cutting edge in its time.)

Glad I got it, but I wouldn't suggest paying a lot of money for it unless you're particularly keen on the subject or a professional costumer.

I had high hopes when I saw the new cover for the book, but that's all it is - new wrapper, same layout as the original 80ties edition.

I concur, the V & A's collection is superb and this book doesn't do justice to it (maybe 30 years back it was a laudable effort but not anymore) - not by far, 90 percent black and white phtographs, most of them rather small and not very good to begin with, the book is based on an 80ties presentation of the collection. I also felt it was not as organized as it could be, though you can gleam some good information from the text.
But there are much better books out there to educate yourself on the history of fashion. And even the V & A have shown with their Fashion in Detail books that they can do it.

So yes, if you want to have a reference book for the V&A collection on your shelf, this is the one as it is the only one available, sadly. But better than nothing - which isn't very high praise indeed.

Bottom line: it's high time the V&A did a compelte overhaul of the contents and not just the wrapper. I recommend checking for a good used copy of this book for your library - it's more than sufficient.

This too was disappointing regarding the images, too many in black and white. I am able to access the VA Museum website and get more details, yet this is not what I bought the book to have to utilize in this manner.

This has tons of great detail pictures and information about where the gowns are and where they are from. Great information on period items and notes on techniques.

Since other reviewers had remarked that many of the photographs are in b&w and are very small, I worked my way thru the book with my copies of V&A's Fashion in Detail (17/18th and 19th Century) and my Janet Arnold books and found this to be quite satisfactory, albeit a bit tedious.

The book is 176 pages long and is a paperback worthy of V&A (the binding is good, the colors are as good as a printer can get, and the paper is good and heavy).

The chapters are:
Introduciton
Women's Dress before 1900 by Madeliene Ginsburg
Men's Dress by Avril Hart
Women's Dress since 1900 by Valerie D. Mendes (which ends in 1983)
Accessories (small discussions by various of the staff)
Catalogue

The stength of the book, for me, is the Men's Dress discussion and catalogue, since men's dress is rarely covered.