Book Review: The Mode in Costume


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Vision 77

 

Book Review:

The Mode in Costume

By

Lazette Gifford

Joyously Prolific Blog

Copyright © 2014, Lazette Gifford, All Rights Reserved

 

 

Dressing your characters properly isn't just for historical novelists. Creating a clothing style even for your science fiction characters can be considerably more fun if you have an overall view of clothing in general. Fantasy worlds need not be 'generic' in how they look. What is the difference between Italian, French and English Medieval clothing? Little notes like 'Between 1199 and 1215, the surcoat was adopted in England by men and women, copied after the panel of fabric worn over the knight's armor' (Page 57) helps to set the stage for styles.

When many of us need something historical in clothing, we often jump on the Internet and start searching for pictures, which often work well enough. In fact, those pictures may be a necessary addition to something like this book which is filled with line drawings, but lacks the color and vibrancy of a color picture or drawing. The Mode in Costume is a history of clothing from Egypt to the late 1950's. History is the keyword here. With this book you begin to see the passage of styles and more importantly, the types of cloth and undergarments which may have been worn. These last two are not always apparent in the pictures.

The history of clothing can be fascinating in its own right. Clothing has often been regulated by politics. The chapter on Louis Fourteenth styles states that after the death of Richelieu, the edits against the importation of lace, gold and silver trimmings were ignored, though Mazarin's new rules brought about a new type of trimming, the ribbon. Mazarin's sumptuary decrees in 1656 and 1660 were thought to be severe, forbidding lace and embroideries in an attempt to curtail the payments of so much gold; importing Venetian and Flemish lace was forbidden in France.

How did children's clothing differ from those of adults in the Victorian Age? When did the hems of women's dresses start moving upwards? When did styles become more daring for women and less confining for men?

Adding a book of this type to an author's reference library can help expand the writer's view of clothing and add a new dimension to clothing of the Western World, though it does lack Eastern styles, which limits the use. Still, this book (or one like it) can be very helpful. Don't ignore such books just because you aren't writing historical fiction; everyone dresses and borrowing from older styles might just be what your future world needs to stand out from the crowd.

The Mode in Costume

R. Turner Wilcox Charles Scribner's Sons

ISBN 0-684-13913-8