Customer Reviews

Women's Costume of the Near and Middle East

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

 

 

I have a long standing interest in the clothing of the Near and Middle East, so this book drew my attention. Unfortunately, the title is misleading. This book is ultimately only about women's clothing of the Ottoman Empire, and doesn't even do a good job on that.

Scarce attempts to review the clothing traditions that influenced Ottoman clothing. She wanders far afield, and in my opinion, often astray, as she jumps to questionable conclusions about the connections among the disparate systems.

The section on actual Ottoman clothing ought to be the best, but there, too, Scarce trips and falls. The illustrations are often insufficiently captioned, lacking important information, so that the reader may not always realize what the true relationship of each is to the text and to other garments. Some items from specific ethnic and cultural groups living within the Ottoman Empire are presented as if they are representative of Ottoman Turkish clothing, and the relevant information, which i have found in other sources, is lacking anywhere in the book.

I have this book and use it, but only in conjunction with other books on the clothing of the various groups she draws from which include better historical details and information on the provenance of specific garments.

This is a amazing book! If you are interested in reproducing authentic costumes, this is the book for you. I have used this book many times to make my own costumes. There are patterns and pictures of each piece of clothing so you can easily make your own reproduction. This is the only book you need if you want to make a Turkish costume. It is also an excellent book for a college research paper. This book is too good to pass up!

I think this has to be THE definitive book on the subject and now it's back in print. Sadly I paid over 100.00 for the out of print version. This book is loaded with images--paintings, sculpture, actual garments and pattern diagrams. It is extremely well referenced. I enthusiastically recommend this book.

This book has many prints of paintings and artwork depicting details of the costuming of this era from this part of the world, with dates corresponding to the time periods. Some paintings included even show close details of seaming, which you do not often see in these types of sources. A fantastic source of inspiration for costuming and possibly period documentation for historical costuming.

I found this book many years ago when I was starting 16th century Ottoman Costuming. Fifteen years later I still recommend it to my Ottoman Costuming students. While much of the book comes after the 16th century, there are some very good line drawings showing seamlines and pattern shapes for 16th century Ottoman garments. While this book has some inaccuracies and conclusions I do not agree with, it is a GREAT book to START your research with. Its very extensive bibliography gives many other sources to extend your research.