Beauty and Cosmetics 1550-1950
By Sarah Jane Downing
(Shire Library, ISBN: 978-0-74780-839-8)
Beauty and Cosmetics 1550-1950 is a comprehensive history of Beauty and Cosmetics from Pagan cultures to Christian cultures through to the 1950s.
The small size of this book belies the extent of information contained within, including a rich social history.
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Charlotte Smith is a fashion anthropologist, speaker and lecturer, and custodian of The Charlotte Smith Fashion Collection, formerly known as The Darnell Collection, which comprises over 9000 dresses and accessories spanning over 300 years of fashion history.
Ms. Smith has been featured in the popular television show, “Strange Inheritance”, and is the author of several books featuring her collection. These include Dreaming of Chanel, Dreaming of Dior, and One Enchanted Evening.
Charlotte Smith recently established the “UK Fashion History Tour” company, and sponsors the “Dress for Success Sidney Gala” every year. She currently makes her home in Sydney, Australia.
Claire Shaeffer is an independent researcher and internationally respected designer, author, educator, lecturer, and columnist. She frequently contributes articles to sewing magazines and has authored many books, including her latest publication, Couture Sewing: Making Designer Trims.
She is also the author of Couture Sewing Techniques, Couture Sewing: Tailoring Techniques, The Complete Book of Sewing Shortcuts, Claire Shaeffer’s Fabric Sewing Guide, among several other titles.
Ms. Shaeffer offers private workshops and instructions via her website Sewfari , and makes her home in Palm Springs, California.
Collector’s Guide to Vintage Fashions Identification and Values
by Kristina Harris
(Collector Books ISBN 1-57432-096-3)
This book is a basic how to collect vintage clothing primer. The author discusses the various areas of collectible clothing and she addresses the steps involved in building a collection of antique and vintage clothing. The book has many illustrations with prices given for the items illustrated.
The most important thing to remember about this book is that it was written for collectors, not necessarily for wearers, of vintage clothing. A person who is looking for information about the styles of the past because she or he is wanting to fit a few retro pieces into the wardrobe needs to look elsewhere for that information.
{…}Couture and Commerce: The Transatlantic Fashion Trade in the 1950s
by Alexandra Palmer
(360 pages, published October 2001 ISBN: 0-7748-0826-8)
Let’s face it, the world of couture clothing has not been a rare subject for publication lately as probably more has been written on the subject this past decade than all combined from previous generations. Palmer’s book however, focuses on the real mechanics of couture from design to sale, and its practical use by real women.
First of all, the pragmatic definitions of fashion: haute couture, couture, designer, bonded model, toile, pattern, licensed copy, “adaption”, boutique, prêt-a-porter, and the other various terms are delineated in the book (although not readily) – and that itself is not an easy task.
Although this information is useful, it is the context of what fashion is that is fascinating, especially within the context of Toronto’s society women of the 1950s as set forth by Palmer. The concept one has of couture from the pages of Vogue is often remote from the reality of its purchase, wear, and re-wear. I was surprised that one illustrated example of a dress model entitled “Espoirs perdus”, as drawn by Balmain in 1956, was substantially redesigned in the couture house by its vendeuse and client, resulting in a dress that had little similarity to Balmain’s vision. As Palmer points out “The ability of a client to redesign is an aspect of haute couture that has been largely overlooked in favour of promoting the designer as artist and quintessential arbiter of taste.”
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Dale Hope is the author of The Aloha Shirt – Spirit of the Islands.
Dale has just published a new edition to this wonderful book, click here to find it on Amazon .
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Dressing Up Vintage
by Tracy Tolkien
Pavilion Books Ltd ISBN 1-86205-305-7
Mainly a guide for what to collect from the second half of the 20th century, the emphasis is on designer fashion. The book employs a mixture of vintage photographs and modern pictures of vintage clothes. There is a small section on how to go about starting a vintage fashion collection.
This is the kind of book that I could recommend to a beginning collector, but there’s really not much in the book that an experienced student of fashion history would not already know, or at least have access to in other resources.
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Edward Maeder is a costume and textile historian and has held curatorial positions at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, Los Angeles County Museum of Art in California, and Historic Deerfield in Massachusetts. He was also the founding director of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
Mr. Maeder currently serves as curator and conservator of the Roddis Dress Collection, and has authored and co-authored several books, including his latest, American Style and Spirit: Fashions and Lives of the Roddis Family 1850-1995.
Edwardian Fashion, by Daniel Milford-Cottam
(© 2014 by Shire Publications, ISBN: 978-74781-404-7)
This compact little book is a quick and helpful read for anyone interested in learning more about dress in the first part of the 20th century. It is written from a British viewpoint, but the bountiful content applies across the Western world. Milford-Cottam begins by “Setting the Scene.” This first chapter delineates the differences between pre- and post-Victorian dress, explaining both why and how fashion changed following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and ascension of her stylish son, Edward VII. We learn that the Edwardian period includes not only the years of Edward’s reign, but also those of his less sartorially influential son, George V, ending with the outbreak of WWI in late 1914. In the remaining chapters, broken down in roughly 5-year increments, we learn about the start of modern fashion reporting, the rise of female designers, and the most notable trends of each period. The focus is mainly on women’s clothing, but there is a chapter devoted entirely to menswear. Children’s dress is touched on only briefly throughout.
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Fashion in the 1920s
by Jayne Shrimpton
(Shire Library, ISBN: 978-0-74781-308-8)
Fashion in the 1920s explores the fashion worn in the 20s from a British perspective, along with the social history that influenced the fashion of the time.
The effects of the Great War along with the rapid industrialisation of major cities in Britain are examined, along with the rise of consumerism, and the changes to the rigid class system of the time.
Jazz music, along with film, technological advances, and the availability of the motor car and the effect of these changes on fashion and society are explored in depth by the author.
Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen
by Sarah Jane Downing
(Shire Library, ISBN-10: 0747807671)
This compact book examines British fashion history from 16th December 1775, when Jane Austen was born, to 1819, as seen through the eyes and words of Austen herself.
The book is a comprehensive overview of clothing worn by women, men and children of the upper and aspirational classes, as well as the social, political, and military influences on the fashions of the period.
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Fashion in the Time of the Great Gatsby
By LaLonnie Lehman
(Shire Library, ISBN: 978-0-74781-299-9)
Fashion in The Time of The Great Gatsby, aims to explore 1920s fashion in America as seen through the world of Gatsby’s author- F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The book touches on the changes to society and the consumerism that influenced 20s fashion, from emancipation to both men and women embracing leisure pursuits, sports, jazz music, dancing, silent film and automobiles.
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Floral Frocks: A Celebration of the Floral Printed Dress from 1900 to Today
by Jo Turney and Rosemary Harden
(Antique Collectors’ Club, Ltd. ISBN-10: 185149538X )
From the 1920s through the end of the 20th century, the floral frock was an important player in the fashion scene. This book, Floral Frocks, explains the garment in the context of its times, from the 1920s when florals became a “fashion fabric,” to the hey-day of the 1950s Horrockses floral frock, to the 1970s Laura Ashley nostalgia-inspired frock.
The book is lavishly illustrated not only with views of the dresses, but also close-ups of the prints. There are also numerous period photographs of women in their floral frocks. Best of all is when we are given both – the frock as it is displayed today and the vintage photo of the original owner wearing it.
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Gear Guide 1967: Hip-pocket Guide to Britain’s Swinging Carnaby Street Fashion Scene
by David Johnson and Roger Dunkley
(Old House Books & Maps, ISBN-10: 1908402563)
This quirky, fascinating little book was originally published in 1967 by Atlas Publishing, London.
A facsimile of the original pocket guide to the boutiques of Swinging London, this book is a must- have stocking filler for Christmas, or just a neat affordable addition to your own fashion library.
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VFG Member Jane Julianelli is a writer who was an editor at Women’s Wear Daily, has been a contributing writer to The New York Times and has freelanced for publications including The Daily News, Harper’s Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and Ms Magazine.
Jane’s book The Naked Shoe is available on Amazon
Jean Muir: Beyond Fashion
by Sinty Stempe
(Antique Collector’s Club, ISBN-10 1851495215)
I’m always hesitant about one-topic fashion books, especially when written by someone who was involved professionally with the subject. Seems like you either get an emotional homage or an insider-tell-all. In this case, the insider is Sinty Stempe, who was Jean Muir’s personal assistant, and who is still employeed at Jean Muir, Ltd. She has managed to honor Ms. Muir without being overly sentimental, and at the same time, she gives us a wonderfully detailed look inside the design house that made simplicity chic.
The book is beautifully illustrated, not just with fashion shots, but also with sketches, personal photos, newspaper clippings and magazine pages. There are photos from all the decades of her career, and it makes clear not only the progression of ideas, but also the themes and fabrics to which Muir turned to again and again.
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Longtime VFG member Jonathan Walford is the curator and founder of the Fashion History Museum located in Cambridge, Ontario Canada, and has published books with subjects ranging from shoes, to forties fashion, to 60s paper dresses and more. His latest is Fashioning Canada Since 1867 which is available for purchase via the museum website .
Several of his popular titles include Shoes A-Z, The Seductive Shoe, Forties Fashions, 1950s American Fashion, Sixties Fashion, and Ready to Tear: Paper Fashions of the 60s.
Mr. Walford has held curatorial positions with several institutions, including the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, where he was the founding curator. He is currently the curatorial director of the Fashion History Museum in Cambridge, Ontario – an institution he founded with his partner Kenn Norman, in 2004.
Kerry Taylor is the director and founder of Kerry Taylor Auctions Limited, one of the world’s leading auction houses specializing in vintage and antique fashion, costume, and textiles, located in Bermondsey, London UK.
In 2013, Ms. Taylor was featured in the televised, “Princess Diana’s Dresses: The Auction”, and is the author of “Galliano” and “Vintage Fashion & Couture”.
Wear Vintage Now! Choose It, Care for It, Style It Your Way is a book by VFG member Maggie Wilds, aka denisebrain. She wrote the book for everyone who loves women’s vintage fashion, but could use more knowledge—and encouragement—to wear and collect it well.
You can purchase the book from her website.
