Customer Reviews

The Historical Encyclopedia of Costume

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

 

 

High on colorful graphics and low on content, "Historical Encyclopedia of Costumes" has neither a glossary to explain the obscure terms nor any sections explaining the guiding forces of the costumes' evolution. The right-hand pages contain the beautiful, albeit inaccurate plates, while those on the left hand contain the written captions for the illustrations. Sadly, most captions are simplistic and not very informative (how am I to know who a flagellant is and why he must whip himself?). The individual figures and costumes are rarely numbered (although the captions frequently refer to numbers that just aren't there); some of the figures don't have any captions at all, leaving the reader in the dark.

Nevertheless, the sheer variety of illustrations is to be applauded. Most of the world's regions and time periods are exhaustively covered, from Roman armor to the tribal costumes from the New Hebrides to the customary vestments of nuns of the Crusade era (unfortunately, and quite logically, there is no section on modern dress).

However flawed this work is, it does create interest in the subject and can serve as an excellent reference for authors of various forms of fiction.

This book is not very useful to the historical costumer or those interested in costume history. Rather than paintings or drawings of clothing from their own time periods, it consists of redrawings in a Victorian style, thus distorting the historic lines.

It might be useful to theatrical costumers, Victorian recreationists or those interested in the history of costume interpretation or illustration. But it does not give accurate representations of the garments illustrated, so if you want to make historical garments, get books with pictures that are actually from the time periods of the clothing you're interested in.

This book is valuable in it's position as a 19th Century-written book on the history of fashion. For this reason, it would be invaluable to anybody researching the attitudes of the 19th Century.

However, for anybody wanting to research fashion it is of use only as a pretty oddity.

It is fun to look through - the coloured plates are beautiful. Some of them are quite detailed and can give a very good idea of the fashion, but it is necessary for you to do more research before accepting this as gospel.

This is an excellent resource! The illustrations are beautiful and many countries are covered. The descriptions are very helpful. However, the drawings are very stylized and a serious costumer or reproductionist will have to supplement your research for more accuracy.

For any admirer or Racinet's work, this book is a "must own". It is comprehensive, detailed and offers a great deal of information on Racinet's extraordinary lithographs. It is chock full of interesting facts pertaining to history and costume. The book stands on its own but is a wonderful complement for any owner of Racinet's prints. Wonderfully illustrated.

I purchased this book for my son who is an Animation Major at San Jose State University. He loves this book because it has wonderful examples of period era costumes that he can draw from for examples in his animation projects. He highly recommended this book. I went through the book myself and thought is was very well done. Some of the pictures seemed life like. I would recommend this book.