20,000 Years of Fashion The History of Costume and Personal Adornment - Hardcover

Boucher, Francois

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0810916932 ISBN 13: 9780810916937

Publisher: Harry N. Abrams, 1987

Synopsis

20,000 Years of Fashion is a definitive study of mankind's efforts to cover, decorate, and improve the appearance of the human body. 1, 188 illustrations, including 356 plates in full color

About this title

Language Notes:

Text: English, French (translation)

From Publishers Weekly:

This scholarly, absorbing history of dress, an updated edition of a 1966 reference work, ranges from prehistoric costume through present fashion. From antiquity to the 14th century, costume was generally long, loose and draped, not nationalistic in character, and reflected magical and religious functions. From the 14th century, when costume became short and fitted, to the 19th century, clothing acquired personal and national characteristics. The third fashion phase, under the influence of industrial mass-production and European expansionism, beginning in the mid-19th century and continuing to the present, is less personal and more international, although there are also exclusive haute-couture designs for moneyed clientele. Readers will delight in the superior 1188 illustrations, including 356 full-color plates, that feature a bell-shaped, skirted terracotta idol from the eighth century B.C., sixth century B.C. funerary stele of the warrior Ariston, late 13th century Sicilian silk cloth, 17th century Rubens and Van Dyck and 19th century Renoir portraits, and a 1965 Saint Laurent minidress. The late Boucher and Deslandres were director and assistant, respectively, of the French Center for Costume Studies.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
• Publication date: 1987
• ISBN 10: 0810916932
• ISBN 13: 9780810916937
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 459