Customer Reviews

American Family of the 1920s Paper Dolls in Full Color

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I started buying Tierney's American Family series as a reference so that I can better imagine the typical people of a particular period. The more usual documenting of high fashion isn't useful for that purpose, although Tierney usually has a paper doll book for that, too. These are also in full color, whereas contemporary illustrations often are not. I have read costume designers who says that Tierney's books are very helpful to when trying to determine exactly what the customer wants. I wonder how many people buy these books not to play with the dolls, but because they are such a useful and economical reference source. As paper dolls, they look moderately difficult to cut out, owing to all the detail, if one is determined to leave no waste paper.

In these books, Tierney starts with a succinct and well-written description of the era. He creates a story about the family, usually includes three generations of moderately wealthy Americans so that he can display fashions typical of various age groups. He shows clothing suitable for a variety of leisure, work and dress-up occasions, usually including a wedding. Since he focuses on only one or two decades, they are more informative than most general costume reference books. Each costume has explanatory notes specifying such details as fabrics, hair-styles and precise time period.

For those interested in more fashionable clothing of the era, Tierney produced Roaring Twenties Paper Dolls about the trendier dressers, Great Fashion Designs of the Twenties: Paper Dolls in Full Color about the haute couture, and More Erte: Fashion Paper Dolls of the Twenties, which title implies that there was another book about the designer/artist Erte.

The Tierney collection of family paper dolls are beautiful, practical, historical, and charming. Homeschooling friends of mine love them because they're something to do backed up with quality text.

I purchased several of Tom Tierney's historical paper doll sets to augment my family history projects. I have 150 years of family photos which are mostly in black and white, of course, so it's great to see the period clothing in detail and in color. The paper dolls will add so much to my research and my family's appreciation of the historical times and stories. Although I intend to keep the paper dolls uncut, they are printed on card stock which would be easy to cut and not tear apart if well-cared for.

This entire line of paperdolls of each decade is delightful and educational. The costumes are marvelous and the little histories that go with the set add interest to the product. What I liked best about this Tierney series is that the set is a family grouping. That seems to make it all the more interesting.