The first costuming book I ever had was _The Pictorial Encyclopedia of
Fashion_, by Ludmila Kybalova et al. (It's a translation.) I bought it
from a remainder house for $1 or something, by mail, when I was 15 or
16. I thought it was incredibly cool. My parents had been buying me
Victorian and Edwardian clothes at estate auctions for years, but I had
had no idea how to date them, or really what they meant. Then a little
while later I got Millia Davenport's _The Book of Costume_ and Francois
Boucher's _History of Costume_. Even more cool, three whole books on
historic costume! I still have them all. They're not exactly in-depth,
of course, but it was not such a bad thing to have the equivalent of a
"history of Western Civilization" lecture course on costume before I
learned anything more detailed. It gave me a framework for
understanding what went where, era-wise.
I started working on constucting costumes taking clothing design courses
in college, which was a real divergence from what all the other students
were doing (although one woman in a couple of courses I took was making
a lot of "authentic" ethnic clothing).
Fran
Lavolta Press
http://www.lavoltapress.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In a message dated 10/6/2007 6:41:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I would like to give our
grand-daughter a couple of profusely-illustrated reference books about
18th C. Fashions as "starters" for a personal reference library for her
new interest.
You say she is "young"--just how old is she? As beautiful as it is, I would
not, for example, give the catalogue for "Dangerous Liaisons" to someone too
young--it is definitely rated PG-13. Actually, the pictures are great, but
the text would probably go over her head (heck, it practically goes over MY
head), so maybe it would be all right.
Any of the heavy drafting books, like Arnold, also, I think would not be as
much fun for a really young beginner.
And if she doesn't already know how to sew, I would get her started, just in
case she does decide to do living history. Maybe give her lessons as a
gift, if you can't do it yourself.
I got intimately acquainted with the few costume books in my high school
library. One I don't remember the name of, and haven't seen it since, but I was
very taken by the two-page spread of David's painting of Napoleon's
coronation--I dressed my Barbie like Josephine for a high school project, and I still
have that dress. Another was Wilcox's "Mode in Costume." I know, I know,
it's terrible, but it helped get me started--I made paper doll dresses like
some of my favorites! I found a cheap used copy over 20 years ago, so it is on
my bookshelf.
Ann Wass
Ann Wass
Ann Wass
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