What People Wore When: A Complete Illustrated History of Costume from Ancient Times to the Nineteenth Century for Every Level of Society

Beautifully illustrated with meaningful text. My grandson is interested in pursuing a career in film, but not in front of the camera. At the moment his backstage interest lies in costuming. This book was the perfect gift

I purchased this book to use as a reference for making historical costumes for doll figures, and it is well worth the price I paid. The book follows a simple chronological progression of years with every two pages showing a new series of beautiful illustrations in color depicting either men's or women's clothing from the time period being discussed. The historical descriptions are concise, and each illustration is labeled with regional terms and titles that can easily be looked up on the internet or in other reference books if more research is needed. Everyday clothes, costumes, or regalia from Europe, Africa, the Far East, the Middle East, and North America are well represented. The only thing missing from this book is the native and national dress of Central and South America, and Australia and New Zealand areas. In spite of this lack, this is the best book on clothing and costuming I have ever used.

The Good:Loads of detailed illustrations. Informative, even takes the time after explaining names of certain clothing items to point them out on the images. Organized chronologically, even touches on clothes from non-European countries, though only briefly.The Bad:Don't let the subtitle on the cover fool you, the furthest into the 19th Century this book gets is the 1840s. As someone who loves the Romantic, Victorian and Edwardian eras of fashion, I was very disappointed. It would appear this is the case because the book uses illustrations from a book published in the latter half of the 19th Century.

Like new, clean copy of book arrived quickly. Very pleased.

All of the pages have color illustrations, great descriptions and the way it is written makes it easy to read, even to those with no previous fashion background. It is organized by year and geographic areas. It does lack a bit of the cultural background behind the development in each style/fashion. Great book overall and it is even used as a text book for Fashion History classes, including in Art Institute. Mostly basics.

This was a very fascinating book. If you are interested in costuming before the 19th century, this book gives detailed information about clothes, hair, and accessories of Americans, Europeans, etc It even shows how the people wore each layer which would be helpful. Unfortunately for me, though, I was looking for 1800's, which is the 19th Century, so the book cut off right before the era I was looking for. That was my error. I'm sure if it continued through the 19th Century, it would have been what I was looking for.

I bought this book just for pure curiosity really. I am interested in the fashions of the past and while this book is quite informative, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. It only goes from about the Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian times to the early to mid 1800s. This was a bit disappointing to me, as I am slightly more interested in the fashions of the latter 19th century and onward. The book does briefly cover both male and female fashions with very nice illustrations and facts about the practices. It's an informative book, but just not exactly what I was looking for.

First of all, this was a gift for my niece who is into drawing and creating characters and looking for different clothing styles through the ages. She and I both enjoyed looking through this book with its beautiful drawings and historical references to categories of clothing.