The Worldwide History of Dress by Patricia R. Anawalt

Synopsis

The definitive costume book: a glorious celebration of ethnographic clothing that brilliantly traces influences from culture to culture around the globe.

From Neolithic plant-fiber skirts, Ancient Egyptian linen shifts, and Classical togas through Mongolian shamanic robes, Japanese kimonos, and Indian saris to nineteenth-century Tyrolean dirndls, contemporary African ceremonial attire, and today's Middle Eastern burqas, every notable geographical region, historical period, and style of dress is covered here.

All aspects of dress and accessories are discussed: basic men's and women's clothing, footwear, outerwear, hairstyles, headgear, jewelry, armor, special costumes, garment decoration, and face and body modification. More than one thousand illustrations include both vintage and modern-day photographs of local people in local clothing; color plates of museum-quality artifacts on display or posed on mannequins; historical paintings, miniatures, woodblock prints, and other artworks showing traditional clothing; line drawings illustrating traditional motifs and designs; and more than fifty specially commissioned maps.

As well as discovering remarkable examples of actual garments and accessories, Patricia R. Anawalt has unearthed stunning representations of authentic worldwide dress in the form of statues, figurines, busts, stone plaques, monumental carvings, friezes, murals, mosaics, and pottery. Historical backgrounds on each region include descriptions of population, geography, and climate, allowing the reader to understand fully the development of an area's clothing customs. 1,100 illustrations and photographs, 800 in color.

James F. DeRoche <P>Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. - School Library Journal

This is an excellent browser's book on ethnic dress, here defined as what people wear when they're not in Western business or casual attire. Featuring over 1000 illustrations (900 in full color and many covering more than half the page) beautifully printed on glossy paper, the book delights the eye. Anawalt, a respected anthropologist, museum curator, and traveling lecturer on the study of dress, also wrote Indian Clothing Before Cortésand the very scholarly Codex Mendoza. Without saying why, Anawalt omits consideration of the history of modern Western dress-as much a form of folk-dress as any other. This is a minor complaint, however, since Western dress is thoroughly covered elsewhere. All in all, this book is most suitable for the casual reader who wants a broad-brush introduction to folk dress. It will serve specialists only as a stepping-off point. Although a bit pricey, it is still recommended for most libraries.

Biography

Patricia R. Anawalt is Director of the Center for the Study of Regional Dress at UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles. She has published widely on the subject of costume history.