According to the editor this volume is “a one‐stop reference for anyone interested in fashion” and complements the online Berg Fashion Library (Eicher, 2010) (RR 2011/184), also available as a ten volume printed set as Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, and the Encyclopedia of Clothing and Fashion (Steele, 2005) (RR 2005/295) published by a Thomson Gale imprint which still owns copyright of the articles.
The companion is aimed at curators, academic staff and students of fashion studies rather than those students doing practical fashion courses as the entries are too wordy for the latter with too few illustrations, which are what they require for their inspiration and work. More than 300 entries have been drawn from Steele's (2005) publication and those which have been updated are indicated by an asterisk, for example John Galliano and Viviene Westwood. The updating tends to be mainly of the designer entries.
With its alphabetical arrangement it is in fact an encyclopedia rather than a companion, as the latter implies articles under broader headings. In‐depth articles cover fashion designers, dress types, periods and styles. Topics covered range from Aprons to Fascist and Nazi Dress, Music and Fashion to Street Style. Some longer entries have sub‐headings, which is very useful, for example Girdle divided into the following sections: Flappers and Girdles; Thriving During the Depression; Wartime Retrenchment and Postwar Expansion; 1950s Heyday; Surviving the 1960s. Some longer articles on the other hand have not been subdivided and would have benefitted from being divided into sections such as Hairstyles (four pages) and Jewellery (six pages). The actual length of entries varies considerably with a small entry on Karl Lagerfeld yet nearly two pages on Roland Barthes.
Throughout the companion some of the entries contain helpful little black outlined boxes which include quotations, more information, suggestions for research and poems, for example “How old is that apron?” suggests readers look at old magazines and other resources to research the topic and in the Swimwear entry there is a large box on bathing beauties. The text is scattered with small black and white illustrations and there is a separate section of 32 pages of high quality colour illustrations one‐third of way into the book. Since the images are not referenced anywhere in the texts this requires the readers to flick back and forth between article and image.
All entries have bibliographies at the end ranging from a couple of titles to longer, more detailed lists, for example “Hugo Boss” has two references whilst “Fashion, Theories of” has almost one whole page. The index (pp. 754‐782) consists of relevant terms related to the main entries. See also references appear at the end of the entries. Some refer to other entries in the companion whilst others are just for general reference when searching other publications. For example, under Hijab “see Islamic Dress and History of Islamic Dress” and under Equestrian Dress “see Breeches”. In both cases the latter do not appear anywhere else in the companion.
As the reviewer who worked in a university offering fashion studies, I am very aware that academic libraries already contain vast numbers of book on all aspects on fashion. Why buy this one? One reason would be that the editor has an excellent pedigree being Director and Chief Curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and founder and editor in chief of Fashion Theory one of the journal titles for fashion students and staff. Much cheaper than the Berg Fashion Library or its ten volume print equivalent, the companion is affordable for academic art libraries priced at £29.99 for the paperback edition.
