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Product Description
Product Description
Here, in over 2,000 specially drawn illustrations, is the most comprehensive and detailed history and sourcebook of shoes ever published. John Peacock charts the development of every kind and style of footwear for both men and women from earliest times to the present day. Reproduced in meticulous detail and full colour is a host of representative examples of footwear: the simple sandals of ancient Egypt, made from natural fibres and held onto the foot with narrow thongs; the embroidered and bejewelled shoes of the Byzantine empire; the fantastic pike-toed boots newly fashionable in the fourteenth century; the hugely exaggerated platform heels of the sixteenth century; eighteenth-century silk slippers; as well as a huge range of contemporary shoes, from brogues and baseball boots, stilettos and winklepickers, to todays fashion footwear in radical materials and experimental styles. Neatly arranged in six chronological sections, the pictures are accompanied by full descriptions, including details of all materials, heel and toe styles, decorations including embroidery and beading, and fastenings including buttons, laces and ribbons. An invaluable reference section includes an at-a-glance time chart showing the development of footwear through the ages, a concise bibliography, and biographies of the worlds leading shoe designers and companies, including Salvatore Ferragamo, Charles Jourdan,Terry de Havilland and Manolo Blahník.
About the Author
John Peacock's bestselling publications include complete sourcebooks of: 20th Century Jewelry; 20th Century Fashion; Fashion Accessories; Men's Fashion; and The Chronicle of Western Costume.
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8 reviews
44 of 47 people found the following review helpful
Complete hype
20 May 2005
Format:Hardcover
I happened upon this book in the bookstore, and also recently saw it mentioned in Harper's Bazar. All they say is that it is a "comprehensive history of footware." What they fail to mention is that all the pictures are illustrations. There is not one single color photograph of an original shoe. If you check the product description above that Amazon provides, it does tell you that it has illustrations, but many people don't know to look there.
While the drawings are nicely done, they didn't give me the same thrill that seeing an actual photo of an original shoe would have. The pictures on the cover are exactly the same type of drawing and the same type of composition that you will see of other shoes in the book. I can understand having drawings of shoes from hundreds of years ago, but not having any photos of modern shoes seems a cop out.
The book is informative, but I think it is in no way "complete." It gives an overview of shoes from different eras, but does not scratch much beyond the surface. So, you get a little of everything and some representative pictures of the average footware, but not a good sense of what might be unique about a particular time period beyond what you can see for yourself in the illustrations.
I've read other books on fashion history that do a better job than this book in covering a wide range of time periods (such as Decades of Beauty). However, these books did not contain only shoes. I have yet to find a book about shoes that has both good photographs and informative text.
So, due to lack of competition, some people may want to check this book out because there isn't anything else out there. But, I would not reccomend buying it sight unseen. I think that this book would be too elementary for a fashion historan or someone into the history of shoes, but too boring for the average person to want to buy. I definitely would not recommend it for someone with a shoe fetish. It was worth the time I spent looking through it at the bookstore because of some of the text, but mostly because of the lack of photos I did not buy it.
While the drawings are nicely done, they didn't give me the same thrill that seeing an actual photo of an original shoe would have. The pictures on the cover are exactly the same type of drawing and the same type of composition that you will see of other shoes in the book. I can understand having drawings of shoes from hundreds of years ago, but not having any photos of modern shoes seems a cop out.
The book is informative, but I think it is in no way "complete." It gives an overview of shoes from different eras, but does not scratch much beyond the surface. So, you get a little of everything and some representative pictures of the average footware, but not a good sense of what might be unique about a particular time period beyond what you can see for yourself in the illustrations.
I've read other books on fashion history that do a better job than this book in covering a wide range of time periods (such as Decades of Beauty). However, these books did not contain only shoes. I have yet to find a book about shoes that has both good photographs and informative text.
So, due to lack of competition, some people may want to check this book out because there isn't anything else out there. But, I would not reccomend buying it sight unseen. I think that this book would be too elementary for a fashion historan or someone into the history of shoes, but too boring for the average person to want to buy. I definitely would not recommend it for someone with a shoe fetish. It was worth the time I spent looking through it at the bookstore because of some of the text, but mostly because of the lack of photos I did not buy it.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Excellent within its parameters
10 Aug 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I waffled between 4 and 5 stars for this. I think Peacock could do with some slightly more accurate titles. This is a history of western European shoes, with ancient Mesopotamia, Greece and Egypt thrown in for length. Beyond those, there is nothing on even eastern Europe, let alone Asia, Africa, etc. I also suspect from his books that Peacock does not really approve of our casual age. I saw only a single tennis shoe; none of the clogs and earth shoes that were so typical of the late 1960s and early 1970s; and none of the elaborate athletic shoes. Peacock does say that he is focusing chiefly on fashionable shoes, but I think that the high-end athletic shoes qualify as designer models, even if the other don't.
Given that, it's wonderful for what it does cover. Men's shoes are included. My favorite part is the ancient shoes; I have never seen such a variety illustrated.
The pages have small but clear drawings of usually 7 or 8 shoes per page, with minimal labelling. More detailed labelling follows. The time length covered by each section varies; as one might expect, shorter period are covered for more recent shoes. This is not as lush as the photographic collections of shoes, but I think it's more helpful as a history, especially for older styles which may have been reconstructed from fragments.
The introduction gives a brief history of the development of the shoes. There is a timeline where the shoes are reproduced as outline drawings to get a idea of the flow of change. This is followed by a concise history of designers and companies, and a bibliography.
So, it doesn't have a scholarly historical text, I don't recommend it for people as a book for gaping over startling shoes, but it is a very good visual history.
Given that, it's wonderful for what it does cover. Men's shoes are included. My favorite part is the ancient shoes; I have never seen such a variety illustrated.
The pages have small but clear drawings of usually 7 or 8 shoes per page, with minimal labelling. More detailed labelling follows. The time length covered by each section varies; as one might expect, shorter period are covered for more recent shoes. This is not as lush as the photographic collections of shoes, but I think it's more helpful as a history, especially for older styles which may have been reconstructed from fragments.
The introduction gives a brief history of the development of the shoes. There is a timeline where the shoes are reproduced as outline drawings to get a idea of the flow of change. This is followed by a concise history of designers and companies, and a bibliography.
So, it doesn't have a scholarly historical text, I don't recommend it for people as a book for gaping over startling shoes, but it is a very good visual history.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Give Thanks for this is as Good as it Gets
26 Dec 2006
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
You really must give thanks to the author for having given us this book. As usual it is peerless in the degree of historical accuracy and detail that his illustrations unfailingly provide. Morever, it is one of the rare books that give us as much insight into men's footwear as it does into the history of women's footwear.
Of course it would have been nice to have detailed photographs of original ancient footwear or even those from a century or two ago. Sadly, many specimens have not survived at all or at often at best are in poor condition and are kept hidden from regular open exhibition at textile museums that do own them due to their fragility. In most cases the original appearances of the footwear have to be reconstructed using paintings and published period sources along with a dash of imagination. The results are illustrations that bring to life what the historic examples would have looked like to a far greater degree than pictures of old footwear delapidated beyond recognition.
Granted these inevitable limitations, the splendid size and quality of the illustrations makes this a tour de force vastly superior to anything else likely to go into print for many years, if not decades, to come
Of course it would have been nice to have detailed photographs of original ancient footwear or even those from a century or two ago. Sadly, many specimens have not survived at all or at often at best are in poor condition and are kept hidden from regular open exhibition at textile museums that do own them due to their fragility. In most cases the original appearances of the footwear have to be reconstructed using paintings and published period sources along with a dash of imagination. The results are illustrations that bring to life what the historic examples would have looked like to a far greater degree than pictures of old footwear delapidated beyond recognition.
Granted these inevitable limitations, the splendid size and quality of the illustrations makes this a tour de force vastly superior to anything else likely to go into print for many years, if not decades, to come
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