art history

This book is aptly titled. It gives just a little bit about everything from ancient Egyptian styles to fashion in the 1990s. Those of you looking for photos and descriptions with great attention to detail should look elsewhere, but those of you looking for just an overview of fashion, this would be a good introduction.

The author discusses the rise and fall of fashion trends through the ages, and how society, industry, and particular people influenced them. The text in this book seems as informative, as it is concise. However, other reviewers seem to think that the author's information about pre-20th century costumes is inconsistent with other sources, but the post-20th century information is consistent with what I have learned from other sources.

Therefore, I recommend this book with some hesitation. If you want a good overview of fashion history, especially a pictoral history, I would recommend this book. On the other hand, if you are looking to learn more about a particular era, especially ancient costumes, I would recommend choosing a book specifically written about that era.

An easy read. Covers from 2900 B.C. to the 1990's with a particular emphasis on the 1800's. James Laver's writing style is wonderful, describing not only the clothing but the historical and social context for each style of dress. The fashions of each period are illustrated by a variety of historical evidence, including statutes, famous works of art, fashion drawings, diaries, cartoons and photographs. The book is not an in-depth study of each period but rather a very brief overview. The last chapter covering from 1940 to the 1990's was writen by Amy de la Haye and is markedly different in writing style. She does not discuss the social and historical context to the extent that Laver does but rather gives an overview of the major designers of each decade and their respective styles. As there is a lot to discuss in the last 50 years of fashion, I wish that this book had dedicated more than 31 pages to modern fashion.

This classic by James Laver is a very good introduction to the subject. This is not an exhaustive history of clothing that one should consult for lengthy descriptions, or pinpoint accuracy tied to the latest scholarship. But what this book is (and is wonderfully) is an overview of a very vast subject distilled into one portable volume. The illustrations are excellent and worth the price of the book in themselves. Great amounts of detail are lacking, but the student of costume history can look elsewhere for in depth information in the works of Boucher, Davenport, Ribeiro, and others. This book can provide the basic knowledge one needs to approach the more advanced publications.

There are discrepencies of terminology in comparison to other texts. This is especially true in his descriptions of Byzantine court costume; Laver uses some Greek terms as opposed to the Latin terms used by most other historians. Laver also has an ethnocentric bias and gives much information from an English point of view. As with Contini's "Fashion: A Social History" and Batterberry's "Fashion: The Mirror of History" (both sadly out of print), Laver's prose and scholarship are a little dated, and he predates political correctness. But the history of clothing is heavily tied to religion and superstitions, public morals and sexuality, gender and social hierarchy. To tell a politcally correct history of clothing is to apply a bias as skewed as the biases it would seek to rectify.

This is a highly readable and succinct account of its subject and is strongly recommended. Given that the wonderful Contini and Batterberry books are not available, Laver's very accesible text is an excellent introduction for the beginning costume historian.