Survey of Historic Costume (6th edition)

The historical costume fashion book has a long history that has tended, during past eras, towards inaccuracy (Racinet’s and Hottenroth’s Victorian images as presented most recently in Leventon (2008)). Modern compendiums of historical fashion, thankfully, are much more rigorous in portraying accurately the details of historic dress, focusing less on the fanciful narrative of dress reminiscent of Herbert Norris and more on its social context and the evidence of extant examples and contemporary evidence.

This is the great strength of this book which focuses on Western costume but which, nevertheless, also documents the unavoidably important dress of the ancient...