Customer Reviews

The Worldwide History of Dress

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

You need this book if you love clothes. Monographs on Dior and Chanel will always be generated by fans and fashion houses. But our design inspiration -the origin of all dress design - can be found on every page of this beautifully illustrated volume. This vast compilation of artisanal, native, and vernacular clothing is compulsory read for the fashion lover, dress historian, and costume or fashion designer. The Worldwide History of Dress fills a gaping void: there is absolutely nothing like this compendium of international dress currently on the bookshelf.

I spent a lot of time over the last week searching Amazon for a book that covers the history of textiles from all over the world, to no avail. I saw this book at Border's this morning and was amazed by it - it's exactly what I've been looking for! I don't know how this didn't show up in searches before, but I'm glad I came across it at the store and had a chance to look through it. This is first on my Amazon to-buy list for when I get my next paycheck.

This is one of the most beautiful books I've had the pleasure of reading. If you are at all interested in world culture, or history or people and their clothing, you must add The Worldwide History of Dress to your collection. Within this text you will find everything you ever wanted to know about the history of fashion and gain new insight into the different customs and traditions of world civilization. It is a remarkable book and I highly recommend it.

This is an absolutely fabulous book. Anyone interested in world cultures, clothing, design, or history will enjoy it. It is richly illustrated. I have an ethnic doll collection and this book will help me identify region dress of my dolls.

For a doll artist who is constantly looking for fashionn inspiration this book is a must. Color photos are fantastic, some pictures show steps to wearing a garment. Anyone who is interested in other cultures, fashion and world history this book covers it all.The price is well worth it.

This book is chock-a-block w/ information about humans in cultures from pre-history to the present time around the world and their mode of clothing themselves. The copious and beautiful photographs of clothing from everywhere and when are worth the price of the book. Moreover author, Patricia Rieff Anawalt, is an excellent and well-informed writer, whose style makes close reading of this 500-plus page volume a treat. Whether perusing or closely reading the chapters, the reader gains more than a fashion show from then to now, from here to there. To have read this book is to become a better informed citizen of the planet.

The only downside of Worldwide History of Dress is the size and weight of the volume--which is best read at a table or w/ a cushion on the lap. The publisher has provided an attached ribbon bookmark, which I found very helpful. I can't imagine reading the book w/o frequently reviewing previous chapters and illustrations.

This is the bible of world costumes. Incredibly researched and presented. Nice organization and indexing from the leading academic in ethnic clothing and its meaning.

I have been a long time collector of the grand Nineteenth Century studies of historic costume by the likes of Albert Racinet, Albert Kretschmer and Karl Rohrbach. Their valiant attempts to identify and organize historic costume into all encompassing encyclopedias represent the very best in late Victorian era thought. So it was with great pleasure that I came across Patricia Anawalt's ambitious "The Worldwide History of Dress". She too shares their passion for collecting and categorizing. However, what separates Anawalt from the great Nineteenth Century illustrators is that she has a PhD in anthropology and has access to all the resources of the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History. The resulting "Worldwide History of Dress" is a tour de force. The book is beautifully printed and is sure to become highly collectible. A better one volume history of historic dress is hard to imagine. Highly recommended.

There is no doubt that the amount of the information given in this book is impressive. Though the quality of information and historic references in some cases is not adequate. Description of some cultures is very brief and inconsistent. The book is full of visual examples from the history of art and architecture, that are very common and known to the broad reader. I was seeking for less common references. Taking into consideration that it is almost impossible to cover such a broad topic in one book, I assume that maximum job has been done.
For professionals I would advise to seek for information on each culture in separate sources.
For a broad reader who is interested in this topic it is a nice reference.

I have a textile collection that includes 500 items from about 60 countries. But if I had read this book earlier, I probably would either have twice as much or half as much but twice as good! There are many regions that are covered here that one rarely gets to read about, like Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost parts of South America, the many South Pacific Ocean islands and cultures, and the outstanding textiles of native Americans, from Alaska to Argentina. This ia a good reference book which should then lead to other books on specific topics...unfortunately, I did it the expensive way - specific books and finally this one!!! Gives the reader an easy way to follow how dress, textiles, developed from Year 1 to the present and an appreciation of how many cultures have managed to keep their pre-Western clothing through the years of colonialism and imperialism.