Jacqueline Ayer

This would not be my first choice for researching costume or costume history, but it might be useful for a costume designer looking for ideas or an actor studying a part. It is a mishmosh of ink sketches of real people, sculptures, paintings, and other artifacts, and all from different eras. The few color illustrations are nice, but as I said, they are few. Coverage is idiosyncratic; for example, I can't find anything from what was then Soviet Asia. All captions are in the back. There is no show more index. There are no schematics or technical drawings.

The best aspect of the book is showing how contemporary (as of 1974) people looked in their clothes. This gives you an idea of the way people moved and rested, how the clothes hung on the body, and a bit of the cultural dimension of clothing. show less