The New Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-based Research in Fashion, revised

Ingrid E. Mida

ISBN 10: 1350517313 / ISBN 13: 9781350517318

Published by Bloomsbury Visual Arts (UK) -, 2026

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 6666-GRD-9781350517318

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The New Dress Detective: A Practical Guide to Object-based Research in Fashion, revised
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts (UK) -
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350517313
• ISBN 13: 9781350517318
• Binding: paperback
• Edition: 2nd Edition
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

The New Dress Detective updates and expands this highly regarded practical guide to analysing fashion objects.

Featuring seven completely new case studies – including an 18th-century gown, a man's 19th-century tailored jacket and pantaloons, a 19th-century boy's frock, a woman's Edo period uchikake, a 1927 homemade wedding dress, a Dior dress ensemble, and a mass-manufactured uniform of the 1970s – this invaluable guide has been revised throughout, to enhance its usefulness for readers and to reflect the state of the field.

The New Dress Detective offers tools to unravel the hidden stories in garments with a carefully developed research methodology specific to dress, with easy-to-use checklists to guide the reader through the process.

Beautifully illustrated, the varied case studies of fashionable western and non-western garments articulate the methodological framework for the process, illustrate the use of the checklists, and show how evidence from the garment itself can be used to corroborate theories of dress or to engage in alternative modes of interpretation such as making, wearing or other creative outputs.

Written in plain language, this book provides a structured approach to conducting object-based research in fashion for anyone interested in fashion including students and practitioners of fashion or museum studies.

About the Author

Ingrid E. Mida is an art and dress historian with a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture and the author of The Dress Detective (Bloomsbury, 2015), Reading Fashion in Art (Bloomsbury, 2020), and Dressing & Undressing Duchamp (Bloomsbury, 2022). She is a Research Fellow at the Modern Literature and Culture Centre at Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada. Ingrid has acted as a consultant to museums and private collectors in helping date and interpret photographs, artworks, and dress artifacts and has lectured in universities and museums in North America, Europe, and the UK.