Customer Reviews

Hats: A History of Fashion in Headwear (Dover Fashion and Costumes)

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This is a rather scholarly work on the history of hats covering the past two thousand years. The arrangement is chronological, by century. If one's interest is identifying or organizing headdress by country of origin, this book is particularly useful as the illustrations include the country where the hat was worn along with the drawing. I am always impressed when the same author does a book's text and illustrations, as is the case with this work (see Sibley's bird book if you really want to be blown away).

This book may give some overwiev of the history of hats but it is not to be recomended for serious studies of costume history.
The illustrations are drawn after works of art and other sources. In the cases where I'm quite certain which work of art it is drawn from I must say that the drawings are often more or less inaccurate. As for the text, I'm from Scandinavia and familliar with the custom "Lucia" on the 13th of december. Reading Amphletts explanation accompanying the illustration of a Lucia crown from Norway I'm amased as it's total nonsense! Belive me, fertility rituals and witches was not the explanation given when i read cultural history at university! [It is a mix of seweral older customs among them serwing an extra breakfast as this was belived to bee the longest and darkest night of the year,and youngsters dressing up and going around singing and begging for food contributions to either their studies or a party. One of the dress up costumes being the christ child with a halo of candlelight around the head. Nowadays (and since about a 100 years ago) the lucia crown on a girl or woman serving ginger snaps and saffron bread together with coffee as she and her followers sings!} If the rest of the text has some more faults as big as this i don't know but it certainly makes me very suspicuios.

This book has alot of printed information in it. A great deal of history. If you are looking for a book to teach you how to make head wear and hats then this isn't the book you need. However for a historical aspect I reccomend it, as long as you can visualise the written word. Its an ok book, not great but not the worst either. I bought it expecting it to contain more practical information, so from that point of view I was disapointed.

An another great Dover publication, this one from 2003. The chapters are grouped by century and then divided into Men, Women, Children as well as some speciality sections such as Military, Crowns, Ecclesiastical. Differences between various European countries at various times is included, with a chapter on 20thC non-European countries as well. Utilises detailed b/w sketches, though usually only the front of side view. Great dialogue on each era provides context. An excellent resource for anyone with an interest in this topic.

this book was bought as a present for another party and has been accepted as a gift, I myself have only glanced at it.The recipient asked for this title.