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Everyday Clothing: A Pictorial History of What People Really Wore琲ehistory to 1850 |
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Mariane Powell-Parker |
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Illustrated: |
In preparation. Reserve your copy; we will notify you upon publication. |
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Preface
The idea for this book came
from my frustration while delving into the many existing books on fashion and
costume history. There were always more than enough research and pictures on
upper class dress. The specialty books that covered occupational dress usually
contained very few pictures of everyday dress. To imagine what a group of
"ordinary folk" would look like required culling from the scattered
research on middle class, lower class, and servant dress. And so I began to
squirrel away my eclectic collection of pictures and notes.
Photography has provided a
continuous and rich contemporary source for dress since the latter half of the
19th century. There is easily enough research and visual information to fill
another volume covering the period from 1850 to the present day. This book
concentrates on the age before photography, starting with prehistoric clothing
and continuing chronologically, if unevenly, to 1850. Except for a brief look
at clothing in the ancient Orient, the bookⳠscope is focused on Western
dress.
The chapters are organized
by a brief outline of basic clothing pieces and their historical, cultural, and
social context. The pictures and their captions follow. A constant challenge
was to find pictures that were both representative of everyday dress and of
reproduction quality. Sources for the pictures include paintings, sculptures,
frescos, miniatures, stained-glass, coins, seals, tapestries, engravings, and
periodicals contemporary to the period being discussed. Surprisingly, the best
information about dress sometimes comes from sources that are not concerned
primarily with clothing: histories, travel books, diaries, memoirs, account
books, and archaeological treatises. The book concludes with an extensive
bibliography to guide the reader who would like to explore further.
While historians, costume
specialists, designers, curators, sociologists, anthropologists, and clothing
restorers will find this book a handy reference, I hope that "everyday
readers" too will enjoy entering the world of everyday clothing, where
they might be surprised--and even delighted--by learning what people like
themselves really wore.
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