Customer Reviews

Altman's Spring and Summer Fashions Catalog, 1915 (Altman's Spring & Summer Fashions Catalog)

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Altman's catered to a more upscale clientele than Sears or Gimbel's, so this volume makes an important contribution to Dover's wonderful series of fashion catalogs and illustration. The prices of the clothes are relatively high (32.00 for a dress must have been a fortune in 1915!), and the illustrations definitely a cut above many other catalogs. On a few pages, photographed models are used, with some detail drawn in by hand to better show the garment's features. Dover, as usual, reproduces the catalog in black-and-white, but the art quality is still great. The catalog is heavy on women's and children's fashion. "Men's furnishings" (as they are referred to) get only 3 pages. Some other goods, such as household linens, nursery furniture, silverware, 1 page of "bric-a-brac" (lamps, candlesticks, picture frames, a smoking stand), and one of sporting goods (golf, tennis, polo), also appear. For greater variety of goods, you'd also enjoy the "Gimbel's Illustrated 1915 Fashion Catalog" also by Dover.

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Dear Dover:

This book, ALTMAN'S SPRING AND SUMMER FASHION CATALOG(UE?), 1915 (ALTMAN'S SPRING & SUMMER FASHIONS CATALOG(UE?) seems an absolute TREASURE-TROVE for those who want to learn fashion illustration, like me.

But -- NINE HUNDRED DRAWINGS....IN NINETY-SIX PAGES? These drawings must be soverysmall! I've seen other catalogues of similar date, and know that yes, each page IS filled with teenytinydrawings, and below them, descriptions of items and prices in minisculeprintsize. At least the early "Sears" catalogues were like this. Did B.ALTMAN'S, a higher-rung retailer, have fewer drawings per page? But even five drawings per page makes for hardtocopy drawings!

If my suspicions are correct, PLEASE re-issue this book -- in larger format, and in several volumes!

Thank you!