1600 French Costumes

Re-examining seventeenth-century French style   Between 1678 and 1710, Parisian presses printed hundreds of images of elegantly attired men and women dressed in the latest mode, and posed to display every detail of their clothing and accessories. Long used to illustrate dress of the period, these fashion prints have been taken at face value and used uncritically. Drawing on perspectives from art history, costume history, French literature, museum conservation and theatrical costuming, the essay... [Read More]

En associant le mot rocaille, référence aux formes alambiquées des coquillages, à l’italien baroco, les Français donnèrent naissance au terme de « rococo ». Apparu au début du XVIIIe siècle, il s’étendit rapidement à l’ensemble de l’Europe. Extravagant et aérien, le Rococo répondait parfaitement à la désinvolture de l’aristocratie d’alors. Dans bien des aspects, cet art s’apparenta à son prédécesseur baroque, ce qui lui valut parfois le qualificatif de Baroque ta... [Read More]

Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, England, houses a world-famous collection of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century textiles. The fact that these exquisite pillow covers, wall hangings, bedcovers, carpets, and upholsteries, many decorated with superb embroidery, have survived in such good condition is little short of miraculous, and due in part to the formidable Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick, who built the house in the 1590s. In her will, Bess instructed her heirs to 'have sp... [Read More]

This book is a study of dress in France in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In it Roche discusses general approaches to the history of dress, locates the subject within current French historiography and uses a large sample of inventories to explore the differences between the various social classes in the amount they spent on clothes and the kind of clothes they wore.

A fantastic, oversized book presenting more than 360 uniforms of French armies between 1660 and 1845. The period covers some of the most turbulent years in French history, from the zenith of the power of the French Monarchy to the Revolution, the risre and fall of Napoleon and the restoration.This book is an excellent resource ot any one interested in the delvelopment of French uniforms in the periodEach plate is presented in landscape format and measures 9" x 12". Below each plate is a full des... [Read More]

In the late Middle Ages luxurious textiles were among the most highly prized indicators of status and wealth and an essential requirement of prestigious secular and ecclesiastical life. The depiction of these sumptuous silks and gold brocades was a crucial element in the visual arts, and their realistic and recognizable representation was a challenge to every artist. Painters and polychromers strove to imitate the fashionable fabrics by using applied brocade, a highly sophisticated form of relie... [Read More]

Immortalized in The Last of the Mohicans, the True Story of a Pivotal Battle in the British and French War for the North American ContinentThe opening years of the French and Indian War were disastrous for the British. In 1755 General Braddock’s troops were routed at the Battle of Monongahela and by the middle of 1756 Fort Oswego on Lake Ontario had fallen. Hindered by quarrelsome provincial councils, incompetent generals, and the redcoats’ inability to adapt to wilderness warfare, Britain w... [Read More]

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This collection of fifteen papers ranges from the author's initial interest in the Tapestry as a source of information on early medieval dress, through to her startling recognition of the embroidery's sophisticated narrative structure. Developing the work of previous authors who had identified graphic models for some of the images, she argues that not just the images themselves but the contexts from which they were drawn should be taken in to account in 'reading' the messages of the Tapestry. In... [Read More]