Tudor Costume and Fashion
Product Description
Monumental, profusely illustrated study of English fashions from 1485 to 1603. Highly authentic, detailed survey exuberantly describes clothing, headgear, hairstyles, jewelry, collars, footwear, more worn by royalty, nobility, middle and lower classes. Most illustrations from contemporary sources. Invaluable resource for fashion historians and costume designers and irresistible to anyone fascinated by the pageantry of fashion history. 1,000 b/w figures. 24 halftones. 22 color plates.
Written by admin under Fashion Books.
Anonymous
August 16, 2010 at 10:19 am
Depending on what you want to do. It won’t show you how to sew anything. However, it does have great pictures in clear black and white showing what people wore in all different classes of society from about 1485 to 1601, carefully documenting changes in high fashion and also showing differences in different countries (England, Spain, France, Germany). I could recognize many of the portraits he used, as a historian of the time, but his drawings made what was actually being worn more clear than in portraits. You couldn’t sew a costume just using his pictures, but if you had a pattern from somewhere else, his pictures would make it look more accurate. For details of sewing techniques, and photos of actual period clothes .I would go to Janet Arnold. I think that they supplement each other well. But neither is really a pattern book (except maybe if you are much more advanced than I am).
Rating: 5 / 5
Catherine Raymond
August 16, 2010 at 11:27 am
For dedicated scholars of costume, Norris’s book is irritating for two reasons: he seldom lists the sources of his beautifully drawn illustrations, making it difficult to assess their accuracy, and he packs his text with rambling digressions into history and historical anecdotes of dubious authenticity. However, you will never find so much information about Tudor costume for people from all ranks and all walks of life in any other place (especially not for such a low price), and Norris’s wonderful black-and-white drawings illuminate for the discerning reader how some of the magnificent ensembles depicted by Van Dyke and Hilliard must have been made. By all means buy this book if you have any interest in Tudor costume, but check Norris against dated sources first if your objective is museum-quality recreation.
Rating: 3 / 5
akasha_in_nyc
August 16, 2010 at 1:39 pm
This book is a must have for anyone who is interested in fashion of the 1500s. It is the best tool I have found so far for Tudor fashions in most of Europe. It gives a great deal of information that is valuable to anyone who is recreating dress of the era. However, it does have some flaws. Norris tends to draw conclusions without giving reasons. Some of these appear to be incorrect. Also, there is a a profoundly English slant to information. Overall however, it is the best resource for Tudor fashion. For Elizabethian, “Elizabethan Costuming” by Janet Winter & “Patterns of Fashion : The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C1560-1620″ by Janet Arnold are better for the money.
Rating: 4 / 5
Anonymous
August 16, 2010 at 3:56 pm
This text and it’s medieval counterpart have good images and are quite well drawn from the originals they are taken from. The problem is they are redrawn images, not the originals and so you do have to be careful if using this as a primary source book. The text is, in my opinion, dodgy and it’s probably better for more reliable books to be used and use this for the pictures.
Rating: 3 / 5
Anonymous
August 16, 2010 at 4:49 pm
I found this book to be a superb resource for designing and constructing Tudor period clothing. I agree with other reviewers that his ramblings can be distracting at times, but the entertainment and interest value overcome the drawbacks. The accessories shown in drawings are superb resources for hair styles and equipages used by Faire Cast persons. Once you have the vision of what you want, there are other sources available to tell you the “how to”, this book is primarily a vision book…and a grand one, indeed. If you are interested in Renaissance Faires as a Cast member or a member of the Needleworker’s Guild then this book is well worth purchasing.
Rating: 4 / 5