> About how many costume/fashion related books or magazines do you own?
Most of my work is now really "history" or "art history" with a focus on dress/textiles, so I buy a lot of books that aren't really about "costume" but which I use for the study of dress or textile history. Books specifically about dress, textiles, fashion, or costuming: About 100. Books on medieval art, history, literature, culture, archaeology, manuscripts, etc.: -- About 400 with pictures, filed in our "art" reference library. This includes coffee-table history books I bought primarily for the pictures. -- Maybe another 400 that are text-only references, mostly history or literature, filed in our "general collection." Magazines: Not relevant to my period. I do have piles of journals, though, maybe 200, including pretty much a full run of the Monumental Brass Society Bulletin and a bunch of the MBS Transactions and old Costume journals. And lots of Xeroxed journal articles (that's how they usually come via ILL). I need to set up a proper filing system for articles, as right now they generally land in the file folder for whatever topic I'm researching at the time, and then I forget I have them. > What was the first one you purchased? Where did you purchase it? For a costume book, probably the Dover reprint of Kohler, bought in my freshman year of college, but I was buying books on medieval art long before that. > What was your most recent purchase? English Medieval Sculpture by Arthur Gardner (1951), bought used for $35 at the Milwaukee airport on my way back from my lectures there a few weeks ago. Full of photos of effigies! Who know I'd find a decent used book store at the airport? And with a really good art section, too. > What do you think was the best deal that you have every made when purchasing > a publication? Does it count as a "purchase" if you get it for free? I got Olga Sronkova's "Gothic Women's Fashion" as a library discard when I worked at World Book Encyclopedia. We moved offices and they culled the reference library, and I grabbed all the discarded costume and art books I could get. > About how many period photographs do you own just for the costuming? None, because my period of interest is pre-photography. I do have a few hundred art postcards, filed in two photo boxes. My own slide collection is about 900 catalogued and maybe another 700 not yet catalogued. When am I going to get around to that? > What book or magazine is your most treasured...if your house was on fire, you > would take it with you. No single one. Too many that are irreplaceable -- I wouldn't go for the books, I think. Maybe my slide binders, as I *really* can't replace the photos I took from artworks in Europe. > What is the worse costume book that you own? I know Robin has a collection! About 30 of the costume-specific books are filed with the Home for Wayward Useless Costume Books, though many of those are really sweet in their own right as Victorian books. The worst? If I had a copy of Peacock or Brooke, that would probably be it. As it stands, probably "Fashion in History" by Bigelow, which was my college costume history textbook and one of the first I bought, and only because I had to, but it's hard to rate the bad ones since they are all so awful in their own different ways. > Do you have a room devoted to your collection? Not a easy question to answer, as the costume stuff is divided into sections along with all the other thousands of books we have (my husband is also a historian, but in another field, and there's fiction and children's books too). The visual sources are in the main-floor "library" (which is also the music room); it holds all the art books and books with pretty pictures. The non-illustrated history and literature are part of the general collection in the basement. The costume reference books I use most frequently are on the wall of shelves in my office or the case just outside it, and my office also houses the Bad Costume Book collection and all the journals, photos, and slides. > When did you start collecting? When I was in college, in the late 1970s. > Do you consider your collection for business or pleasure? Is there a difference? > How many sewing machines do you own? What types and age? One Singer, 1977, bottom of the line, well-maintained and still going strong. > How many sewing patterns do you own? What are these "patterns" of which you speak? --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
