Cambridge Costumes Museum

This lavishly illustrated book brings together a selection of English and Continental samplers of outstanding quality and interest. The selection includes examples from the fifteenth century to the twentieth, showing the development of techniques and changing fashions in design. It brings alive the many social reasons for the sampler's manufacture and decoration, from providing an early 'curriculum vitae' to illustrating the accomplishments of young ladies. The introduction and full descriptions... [Read More]

A treatment of pakistani textiles an overview from the earliest evidence (ca 5000 bc) to the present day including many field photographs

Originally published in 1927, this book analyses a Cretan statuette owned by the Fitzwilliam Museum. Wace then uses this artefact and other representations of Minoan women to reconstruct high-status female dress in the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations and discuss the practicalities of its construction and possible decoration. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in ancient Aegean civilizations or the history of fashion.

Guide to the museums in Pitti Palace, Florence, Italy. Has 180 color illustrations.

Provides a look at the some of the brilliant costumes from various periods in history as presented in the paintings of master artists, such as Vela+a7zquez, Holbein, Hogarth, Raphael, and others, accompanied by quotes from William Hazlitt, Samuel Pepys, and other notable authors. Original.

A private view of the genius of Cecil Beaton, reflected through the lens of his town and country idylls, and his passion for interior design, gardening, and entertaining a circle of Bright Young Things. Cecil Beaton (1904–1980) was one of twentieth-century Britain’s Renaissance men: photographer, costume designer, set designer, playwright, creator of fashion fabrics, and writer on raffiné interiors and the personalities who inhabited them. He also happened to be a fine interior decorator. C... [Read More]

One windy spring day in the Chilterns Joe Rose's calm, organized lifeis shattered by a ballooning accident. The afternoon, Rose reflects,could have ended in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Rose, something passes between them - something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Rose's beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love ofhis wife Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.