Fashion Book Friday: Moda. Toda la historia (Fashion.The Whole Story)

     This is my archive of fashion related books. Most of them are in English, but many are not. Some are new, but many are real finds. Depends on the topic, really...

I`ve been collecting books about fashion since I was a teenager, so I don`t usually buy general interest books anymore, but I had to have this! (This is the Spanish edition, bought locally, but the book is, of course, also available in English)
     It covers the history of fashion chronologically, beginning with the Greeks and Romans, and ending about the year 2010, with particular attention to the 20th and 21st centuries (about 250 pages, everything before that fits on some 200 pages). So, yes, even in paperback, it´s a bit of a heavyweight.

Indivdual chapters are mostly short, as is natural with such an ambitious project, but they also pretty concise and informative, with well chosen illustrations. The huge variety of topics makes up for their shortness: the authors cover menswear, underwear, accessories... The best thing for me personally was, however, the geographical focus: books called "history of fashion" usually mean western fashion, but not here: throughout, non european regions and their fashions are treated on equal footing with western costumes, a handy time bar below the text helps to combine the history of clothes with general history.  Asian, African, American cultures and their own perspectives on beauty and fashion are so included and explained.

A particularly interesting feature are the "focus" pages, where a single garment (or picture of a garment) is analysed in its historical and aesthetic context.  Close-ups draw attentions to unique or important details, such as the hairstyle or the eyebrows in the example below, which illustrate the ideal of beauty during the Tang dynasty, as well as the use of very fine silk, at that time pretty much a Chinese monopoly.

  Short capsules about designers or important "leaders of fashion" (such as Yang Guifei above, who personified the ideal of Tang female beauty) plus a short glossary at the back turn this book into almost something like a fashion dictionary. It definitely has what it takes to become a reference book.
       So, if you are looking for an introduction into the topic of fashion history, or something to leaf through for the lovely pictures, this is hard to beat. If you need sources for reenactment, a book or a play, this is not detailed enough on its own (although it can give you more than a couple of ideas).