Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A great book 4 anyone who needs a costume, 19 Mar 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: What People Wore: 1, 800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century (Paperback)
This book is cool for anybody who's interested in clothes from a long time ago. There's stuff on ancient people in Greece and Egypt plus all over Europe and in America too. Minus one star cuz there's nothing on East Asia, or anything past 1925. It includes close-ups on SHOES! and headgear plus other accesories and even hairstyles. Most of the pics are from fashion plates or real-life photos and paintings, redone in b&w line drawings. If U need a cool, realistic, and unique costume, check out this book. There's lots of ideas for anybody who doesn't want to be a witch or a power ranger for halloween. They have some famous people, like Queen Elizabeth and Lord Chesterfield (whoever he was) and everything is labeled by time period, class, and nationality. If you can find a pattern for some of these dresses and jackets, make yourself some beautiful and fancy clothes that you'll probably never wear (but will look awesome hangin' in your closet!)
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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Book For Research, 27 April 2000
By Ray Ritch - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: What People Wore: 1, 800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century (Paperback)
This book is excellent! The pictures are very detailed, the information is substantial, and the book is extremely organized, which is also a good thing. I especially like his focus on the hair styles and clothing accessories. It is the best book I've been able to find (near and abroad) on historic costumes and outfits. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in history, clothes, and hair styles.
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mixed bag, 9 Nov 2003
By Christine Doyle - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: What People Wore: 1, 800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century (Paperback)
This book is the culmination of research done by Mr. Gorsline. He has recreated the illustrations based upon research done primarily in the New York Library system. Many of his drawings have a reference... but that reference isn't formatted in such a way you could actually find out anything useful. For that reason it's not a particularly good choice for serious "historical" costumers. But if you're willing to accept that limitation, it is a nice reference, particularly the collected drawings of hair and head coverings.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great reference, especially for early clothing and hair, 18 Jun 2003
By Elizabeth - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: What People Wore: 1, 800 Illustrations from Ancient Times to the Early Twentieth Century (Paperback)
I received this book as a gift, and have found it very useful in creating accurate costumes, especially for the Medieval styles. The later (Victorian, Edwardian, etc.) chapters have been less useful to me because they offer limited examples of a few different garments from each time period. Fashions changed so much more quickly after the Renaissance, that a more detailed look at the styles of each decade, or each year, in each locality after the 16th century, would be much more useful. The chapters on medieval and ancient fashions, however, are extremely useful to me, because the images are taken from contemporary manuscripts and illustrations and represent a time period for which we know comparatively little about the garments most people wore, although research continues. The drawings make it easy to see the line of each garment and its shape, which is very helpful in drafting patterns for such garments, and the illustrations of hairstyles and head coverings are also very clear and understandable. This book is most useful as one book in a library of costume publications, as it does not contain much, if any, information regarding fabric weaves, colors, embroidery, etc.
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