Men's Fashion Illustrations from the Turn of the Century (Dover Fashion and Costumes)

This must be one of the most extraordinary publications on men's dress history available even if it only covers the Edwardian period in American. The sheer imaginative depth displayed in the subtle details is quite stunning. The illustrations were intended for use by customers to show to his tailor to draught a pattern off them. As a result, details of construction are shown, usually from front and back.

Sack Suits: Differing from the British lounge suits by the lack of a dart in the coat, they were starting to gain widespread acceptance as business wear in this period. The rather conservative illustrators takes pains to show them being worn only at the seaside and country resort. Striking variations in the cut are shown, often much more daring and tastefully imaginative than anything seen today.

Cutaway Coats: Every conceivable variation of them is shown as a more stylish town wear, although it was still being worn as a more informal alternative to frock coats which were the standard form of daytime 'full dress' for the period.

Full Dress: in the form of evening dress coats as well as frock coats for daytime wear are all displayed. Fascinating variations such as casual frock coats with check/plaid fabrics are on display along with tail coats with shawl lapels fascinating if you know anything about men's dress.

Overcoats: Some of the cuts shown are truly stunning to behold for sporty day wear, day time full dress and evening full dress. The most fascinating thing is the profusion of overcoats cut with a waist seam including overfrocks, as well as variations on the Ulster overcoat and Inverness cape.

Footwear: even this is shown in some detail. Button boots are ubiquitous as are the occasional pair of Oxford boot, and riding boots in the country equestrian scenes.

Accessories: cravat, ties, cravat pins, hats, riding accessories, as well as walking sticks are all shown each example a shining example of how a well presented Edwardian dandy would dress.

This is a treasure trove for anyone with an interest in dress history or Edwardian/ late Victorian period costume, but it is more than that for the dashing cuts of many coats make the cuts of modern menswear seem dreadfully uninspired and mass-produced by comparison. Any tailor will tell you that the level of skill required to realise some of the more difficult styles is extremely high.

Anyone who does costuming knows that there are plenty of pictorial resources for women, primarily drawn form Harper's Bazaar. What has been lacking is a comparable resource for men. This book fills that need nicely.

Since these are period illustrations, they show not only the main articles of clothing, but also good detail of accessories, such as shoes, stickpins, collars and cuffs, hats and canes. The style is fairly realistic, with a wide variety of clothing types, from formal to casual. Since the poses are intended to be natural, they are more useful that period photos, which are frequently only of formal wear, and always stifly posed.

The only thing that keeps this from being a perfect resource is that these are drawings, and may not exactly reflect actual colors and clothing details (showing construction and finish). They do an admirable job of showing fabric patterns and finishes, however, and is the most useful refernce work for this subject that I've found.

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Men's Fashion Illustrations from the Turn of the Century (Dover Pictorial Archive Series) has a prominent place beside my computer. I am writing about the first decade of the twentieth century. The pictures in this book are an excellent study of not only the clothing of the period but also the mannerisms of the time. The book gives a good idea of the attitudes of men over one hundred years ago.

I was disappointed that the book had a limited amount of descriptions of the clothing. This problem was not the fault of Dover Pictorial Archives. Instead I should have paid more attention to the description of the book. The introduction by Jane L. Druesedow offers some valuable information, but I still need to look farther into information about men's fashions at the that time in other sources as I write.

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There are many out there like myself who quickly scan the description of an item and fail to gather the facts. In this case I didn't take into account the title clearly indicates coverage STARTS with the year 1900. I was looking for U.S. mens fashions of the 1890's.

There is one page of text, no information of what changed fashion-wise from the 1890's and 1900. The widely accepted idea that mens fashions did not change "much" betwwen 1880 and 1920 is FALSE. Details such as spats, sloped/non sloped welting on the pockets, creased vs uncreased trousers can make or break your 1890's "re-enactment garb".

If you want coverage of mens fashions of the 1890's then this is not the book you seek...

However, this publication isn't that costly and therefore serves as an affordable research source (i.e. "What is not 1890's" in this case) worth having.

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I used this for research for the Play OUR TOWN. It is wonderful for understanding the styles of this period.

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