book review: Historical Fashion in Detail

Today I have a book review for you of “Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries” by Avril Hart and Susan North. This is an older edition of a book that is now entitled “Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Fashion in detail”. As I have not seen the new edition to see whether it is simply exactly the same book, but with a new cover and title, I can only review the old edition.

I love this book. It is full of gorgeous close-up photos of real garments from the V&A’s collection. And the photos are good. You can see real detail, including the individual stitches.

There are 10 chapters in the book, each dealing with a different aspect of garments, such as buttons; trimmings; slashing, pinking and stamping; stitching, seams, quilting and cording; and gloves and shoes. On the left-hand page there is written text explaining the example, and a beautiful line drawing of the whole garment. On the right-hand page there is a close-up photo of the chosen aspect of that garment on which the focus is laid. Several garments appear more than once in the book, with different aspects being shown in different chapters. The very famous Margaret Laton jacket is one of these.
There is so much to pour over in this book. I love looking at the pleats, marvelling at how much fabric they must have put into their skirts. And all this sewn (constructed) by hand – not by machine!

While there is a lot of embroidery in the book, it is not all embroidery. Some of the garments show the most amazing fabrics, the likes of which we don’t see anymore. It also focuses on aspects of garment construction. I found the section on slashing to be so interesting, as that’s a technique not really used anymore (that I know of, anyway!). As you might expect, I find that some of the whitework garments, using such techniques as quilting and cording, to be some of my favourites – they’re whitework after all!

At 224 pages, this is a book full of inspiration. I highly recommend it.

Historical Fashion in Detail: The 17th and 18th Centuries
Avril Hart and Susan North.
ISBN: 1851772588

In case you should want to chase up the new edition, it is:
Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail
Avril Hart and Susan North.
ISBN: 1851775676