Customer Reviews

American Family of the 1950s Paper Dolls (Dover Paper Dolls)

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

 

 

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. In this case, it's kind of a hoot for me to be looking at the dimly remembered clothing of early childhood. 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 decade, 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. One of the boys has an extra head of hair for when he tries to adopt the Elvis look.

One disagreement with Tierney: I like the sack dress shown in plate 7!

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.