Customer Reviews

Seeing Through Clothes

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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This book is an enjoyable read on the history of clothing. I found this book in the midst of researching my thesis on the history of Italian Renaissance clothing. Hollander makes some intersesting observations of the effect Hollywood has on the general publics visual perceptions of various historical periods. Although she has a lot to say not everything is very well researched. If your intent is scholarly research, take everything with a grain of salt. If your intent is entertainment this is an excellent history of clothing. I very much enjoyed reading this book. If you are looking into the history of dress I also suggest a book by Elizabeth Birbari, Dress in Renaissance Italy. The Birbari is very hard to find, but well worth it once it is found.

Hollander brings an art historian's eye to this survey of the history of Western European costume. Her interest lies less in historical detail than in the ways in which the governing esthetic of what makes a man handsome, or a woman beautiful, has changed over time and in how those changes have been reflected in costume and art. Occasionally, Hollander badgers the reader with a personal theory that is not adequately supported by the information she provides in the text, but most of the book is informative and thought-provoking. If you already have a general knowledge of historic costume, you will find much to interest you in Hollander's book.

Hollander definitely speaks from a fashion historian's point of view. As many of her examples come from the annals of painting, I was continually annoyed and disappointed at her limited engagement with her examples. All too often it seemed as if she only saw painting as illustrations to prove her thesis. I'm not really sure if she knows a thing about painting after reading this book. Example... to include Titian's Danae as an example of what she describes as 'cylindrical' form is so off the mark, and so visually pedestrian, and so very trivializing; I mean honestly, that body type also appeared in Hellenistic as well as early Roman sculpture. And it wasn't because Greeks and Romans were 'under the influence' of constricting bodices. Many examples like this leaves me to believe that she knows nothing intimate about painting -- rather, she uses examples from painting and art to construct her own rather forced arguments about enculturation through the agency of the garment. Fair enough, they are interesting arguments. This is for the most part an entertaining and thoughtful text, and well researched... but sometimes her agenda felt a bit stifling. Unfortunately, it's rife with enough subjective and questionable commentary so as to lead me to caution the reader that not all in this book is transparent enough.

This book is essential for people who is interested about visual arts. Anne Hollander knowledge about clothes and its interaction with Art is impressive.

On the other hand, I'm spanish but I could understand everything: this book is easy to read and understand for not english people.

I found Seeing Through Clothes revelatory, NO pun intended. I've recommended it to many. Major caveat: if you don't have an extensive mental file of artworks through history, you will sometimes have trouble following her arguments because there are not enough illustrations to coordinate with the text. I suppose it is not only more expensive to print illustrations, but also to print them close to the text that is referring to them, and this also can throw you off. Sennett's Flesh and Stone is another book that ties together the evolution of our views on the human body to physical constructs, in his case the built city. A different way of looking at things is always a fun challenge.

1. Seing through the clothes to the underlying anatomy and how this time specific anatomy was handled. Pregnancy an interesting challenge.

2. Seeing through the clothes the statement clothes are making. Glory, nobility, godliness, but mostly invidious comparisons in my judgement.

3. Through the clothes just seeing. Until this book I had no idea how limited my visual apparatus was. The impoverished Blessed Family clothed in well draped woolens going at fifty dollars a yard, never something out of Filene's.

The book is a palatable reductionism of civilisation with the usual shortcomings, but the pschological impact is unique. No book has transformed me in a more fundamental way.