Back to self-education basics. 

Well, well, well. Long time no see for the Fashion Reading category. It's really been a year or so when I last talked about this or that book. Frankly speaking, I always find it hard to talk about serious fashion-much literature, like encyclopedias, biographies and so. I find it much easier to talk about fiction as these kind of books usually have a certain idea - social, cultural, political or whatever - which can then be transferred on to real life and present world. But when it comes to such books as this very one, the Fashion from the 18th to the 20th century, then it's all about educational kind of factor. And I therefore find it problematic to outline main points as to me every piece of information is crucial here.


What I wanted to say about this exact book is that it's one of my favorites within my personal collection. Despite the fact it's quite small in size it still is really informative as authors looked close enough at all three centuries and outlined important changes and events that affected these changes. You might start wondering what's then ratio between text and images? Well, yes, I guess visuals dominate here. And I personally see it as a good point. There's quite a lot of close ups that allow you observe the art of embroidery, pleats and other techniques. Some visuals even got me thinking how some pieces that we love today are still similar to those that were popular around, let's say, 1850-1860's, here I mean Frederic Hebert's cashmere shawls, or 1920's, when female wardrobes experienced the rise of brassieres (bralettes) and slips that with time turned from being strictly intimate pieces into more public-appropriate ones. See, there's an endless list of examples that can be applied here...



Photo: A. Puzova