Bradfield says 'in detail,' she means in detail.Īccording to her introduction, her “studies…are entirely from private collections only a mere handful have ever been exhibited or seen by the general public. It’s all text and drawings, fanatically detailed drawings in which every seam has been measured and noted, every button or hook accounted for… In short, when Ms. Its pages contain not a smidgen of color. It isn’t a gorgeous book, like the coffee-table size V&A or university press publications. When I’m working on a scene where the characters’ clothes are very important for one reason or another, the book I’m most likely to open first is Nancy Bradfield’s Costume in Detail 1730-1930.

Today the spotlight is one of my most-frequently-consulted. Thanks to NHG Susan’s many enticing suggestions, my collection of costume books has become what some might call excessive. This book is something else entirely, original drawings, not copies of somebody else's.As my numerous posts from fashion magazines attest, I spend a lot of time these days studying and thinking about historic dress. Authors who wish to draw pretty mannequins in historique dress and their own interpretations of old artworks always get them wrong. (I am on record as saying that author-drawn costume histories are rubbish. Between the patterns in Arnold's books and the detailed drawings of the finished garments in this book, accurate reproductions can be made. Because of that, this book is an excellent companion to Janet Arnold's books, in which many of the same dresses have carefully charted dress patterns.

Many of the dresses in this book are famous in their own way, in the collections of England. Bradfield has closely, carefully studied them in person and has produced excellent, clear drawings of them, inside and out, showing details of construction and pattern, as well as supplemental material and accessories. These dresses are often too fragile to exhibit, or even photograph clearly, but Ms. Costume in Detail: Women's Dress 1730-1930, by Nancy Bradfield, is a unique, detailed, highly useful collection of drawings of historic clothing, almost entirely women's, drawn from specimens in British collections.

Costume in Detail by Nancy Bradfield