Colonial Indian Costumes

This easy-to-use handbook presents step-by-step instructions and patterns for a tremendous variety of clothes and accessories from colonial times through the Civil War. More than eighty illustrations depict Puritan, Dutch, Quaker, and Native American garb as well as military uniforms. A bonus CD features every pattern in vector files. Drawing upon authentic materials in the collections of major museums, including the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the auth... [Read More]

"[A] handsome digest of commercial, tribal, and folk textiles." ―Fiberarts The production of textiles in India continues to flourish just as it has for many centuries. The interactions of indigenous tribes, invaders, traders, and explorers throughout history has built a culture legendary for its variety and color. From the Rann of Kutch to the Coromandel coast, handloom weavers, block printers, painters, dyers, and embroiderers are creating the most extraordinary textiles. This all-encompassin... [Read More]

An exquisite and authoritative look at four centuries of quilts and quilting from around the world Quilts are among the most utilitarian of art objects, yet the best among them possess a formal beauty that rivals anything made on canvas. This landmark book, drawn from the world-renowned collection of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, highlights the splendor and craft of quilts with more than 300 superb color images and details. Fascinating essays by two noted scholars trace the evolution of ... [Read More]

Chile had long forgotten about the existence of the country’s Black population when, in 2003, the music and dance called the tumbe carnaval appeared on the streets of the city of Arica. Featuring turbaned dancers accompanied by a lively rhythm played on hide-head drums, the tumbe resonated with cosmopolitan images of what the African Diaspora looks like, and so helped bring attention to a community seeking legal recognition from the Chilean government which denied its existence. Tumbe carnava... [Read More]

Now your little girl can transport back in time and dress the part of a Pilgrim to settle in the New World we now call the United States. Costume includes a full length black cotton dress with a cinched waist; lace accents and a black ribbon in a bow at neckline; white cuffed sleeves and a white cotton apron with lace trim and white cotton bonnet with an under-the-chin ribbon tie. Coordinate with their friends in Pilgrim costumes for girls and boys to create a whole colony of fun. Forum offers e... [Read More]

For mask collectors, discusses masked dancing in each state

Over the past hundred years, “chintz” has come to mean any floral printed furnishing fabric, usually made of cotton, and often glazed. Its origins as a hand-drawn and dyed fabric from India are often forgotten, but it is with these rare earlier chintzes that this book is concerned. This stunning album explores in detail the background and development of this beautiful technique and looks at the use of chintz in Europe from the early seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, first as ... [Read More]

About the Book The colonial history of the United States covers the European colonization of the Americas from the early 16th century until their incorporation into the United States of America. From the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Netherlands all embarked on colonization of eastern North America. By the 1770s, 13 British colonies held 2.5 million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachians. The British government imposed new taxes after 1765 and would not agr... [Read More]

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]

The arrival of the Spanish in South America in 1532 permanently transformed the Andean cultural landscape. Within a generation, societies that had developed over thousands of years, including the great Inca Empire, had been irrevocably altered. The arts from the Spanish colonial period—those that drew on native traditions, such as textiles, silver, woodwork, and stonework, as well as painting, sculpture, and other genres introduced by the Spanish—preserve an unspoken dialogue that developed ... [Read More]