50 in '13: #8
Jun. 14th, 2013 04:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sakon76Title: Fashion in the Time of Jane Austen
Author: Sarah Jane Downing
Length: 63 pages
Being stuck in the hospital as I am, with six weeks until Costume College, my mind has turned to what I might be able to sew that would fit and be flattering to my pregnant figure. Regency garb, with its Empire waistlines, flowing skirts, and (most importantly) short stays, comes to mind. So I asked Wonderful Husband to bring me this volume from home.
I picked up this book at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. It's not a thick volume and I made the purchase on the volume of period portraits, illustrations, and modern photographs of extant garments within the pages. Including one photo of Jane Austen's pelisse! Which the Whitchurch Silk Mill had duplicated the fabric of, so I have a pincushion made of that silk at home. Fascinatingly (to me, at least), its dimensions reveal that Austen was 5'7" - only an inch shorter than I am. Though of course she was more slender.
The book is an easy read, and covers a fairly decent range of who wore what, when, and why, including some bits of male fashion I hadn't known. It's not quite an intro book - it doesn't define some of its terms, and assumes you know who the historical figures are - but neither is it a dry scholarly treatise. And it does have plenty of art to entice. Where it falls down, for me at least, is in its lack of sourcing. There are no "from the private collection of XX" or "held in the YY museum" tags for anything, which frustrates further research into any of its images.
Verdict: Recommended for the pretty, but if you want to find out more about any particular item, be prepared for pain.
Author: Sarah Jane Downing
Length: 63 pages
Being stuck in the hospital as I am, with six weeks until Costume College, my mind has turned to what I might be able to sew that would fit and be flattering to my pregnant figure. Regency garb, with its Empire waistlines, flowing skirts, and (most importantly) short stays, comes to mind. So I asked Wonderful Husband to bring me this volume from home.
I picked up this book at the Jane Austen Centre in Bath. It's not a thick volume and I made the purchase on the volume of period portraits, illustrations, and modern photographs of extant garments within the pages. Including one photo of Jane Austen's pelisse! Which the Whitchurch Silk Mill had duplicated the fabric of, so I have a pincushion made of that silk at home. Fascinatingly (to me, at least), its dimensions reveal that Austen was 5'7" - only an inch shorter than I am. Though of course she was more slender.
The book is an easy read, and covers a fairly decent range of who wore what, when, and why, including some bits of male fashion I hadn't known. It's not quite an intro book - it doesn't define some of its terms, and assumes you know who the historical figures are - but neither is it a dry scholarly treatise. And it does have plenty of art to entice. Where it falls down, for me at least, is in its lack of sourcing. There are no "from the private collection of XX" or "held in the YY museum" tags for anything, which frustrates further research into any of its images.
Verdict: Recommended for the pretty, but if you want to find out more about any particular item, be prepared for pain.
