- Publisher
- Taschen
- Published
- 2006
- Shelf
- fashion: History
- ISBN
- 9783822827635
History
Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century
The Kyoto Costume Institute
Three centuries of clothing photographed garment by garment from the Kyoto Costume Institute's collection.
Why read it
Because each piece is shot on a form, front and back, with the silhouette of every decade laid out in sequence, it reads as an argument about how the body's shape gets redrawn every twenty years, and how fast the supposedly natural shape turns out to be a construction.
Why own it
It is a primary-source reference. When you need to know exactly what a 1795 sleeve or a 1965 hem did, this is faster and more accurate than any search, and the photography stays consistent across seven hundred pages, which is what makes comparison possible at all.
Who it is for
Costume, textile and fashion designers, and anyone art-directing period work.
Opens a search on AbeBooks, a network of independent and antiquarian sellers, which is where a good part of this shelf has to be found, because it is out of print.
Read next
Chosen because they argue with this one, not because a machine noticed they share a category.
