A Visual History of Costume: The Fourteenth & Fifteenth Centuries

The two books that I have from this series are two of the most informative costume histories that I have ever seen. Although they are not particularly long, they are carefully and clearly written. They should be models for other writers. This is one history of costume book that you will not need to read with an unabridged dictionary by your side. There is a detailed glossary. In addition, rather than simply throwing a lot of terms at the reader and leaving them to match them up to the details of the pictures, the author very carefully describes what each shows. The descriptions are wonderfully detailed, including comments on class and details of fashion at particular times. I usually prefer line drawings of fashions rather than photographs of contemporary portrayals, but these photographs are clear and well annotated. The book includes a bibliography, with a separate section on useful visual sources and an index. There are a number of books in the series (A Visual History of Costume ... ) covering the whole history of Western fashion, as well as one "condensed" volume that includes samples from all periods.