Historic Costumes and How to Make Them (Dover Fashion and Costumes)

This book is not for the beginner, nor is it likely to be favored by the casual sewer trying to quickly complete a historically inspired Halloween costume. It is however an excellent resource for one who is interested in creating clothes for historical reenactment both live and on screen. For stage productions this is a great starting point for accuracy while any necessary adjustments for quick changes will be up to the costumer to adjust or engineer. The book offers patterns for men and women from a broad swath of European/British History, As such this book is great for a costumer who wants to work in different periods of historical dress. The text and lists also give good guidance on what types of materials would be most historically accurate to use. These patterns will likely give historically accurate construction and seam placement on finished garments. They include all the needed parts but they are at 1/8 scale and don't have any grid drawn on them. the pattern pieces don't seem to have any obvious guidance on which way to lay the fabric either (as in no grain line on the patterns.) The instructions are very parred down so only an experienced sewer is likely to know what really needs to happen as part of each step.

This is a small trade paper book that describes historical garments from a stage point of view. There are some black and white mini prints of some of the garments and some small black and white drawings of the outline of some of the garments and pattern pieces. What is key about this book is the detailed written descriptions. I was looking for descriptions and patterns for garments before they became heavily structured, but still had a certain outline--like a kirtle that was not full of boning and laces--and for that I would have to go back a couple of centuries before what the Ren Faire usually portrays so that country folk may have something similar so I can have the lighter structure in the garment that I want.

Great reference for making garb for our local Renaissance Festival.

I don't think all of the patterns are "historically accurate", but they will certainly give you a very passable end result. The patterns are well marked with decent instructions and there are tons of sample images showing the costumes in context (all in black and white unfortunately...)

I bought this for my daughter for her 19th birthday. She loves making her own clothes and has been interested in making older-time-period clothing for a while. She LOVES this book and has read almost all the way through it in just a few days time- highlighting as she goes 😄! I asked her about the patterns, she said she will have to do some math to make them to scale, but she didn't care - she is so excited to get started.

Just rough drawings of groups of people to see a pattern? Pretty vague...not much here. Book arrived in good time, though.

Simple patterns, simple instructions, and explanations of garb through the ages. It's a simple read that provides picture-proof of medieval/renaissance/etc wear made in that time period. The only thing I would complain about is rather small-- it doesn't have a measuring guide matching up what goes where, but this is something easily self-taught.

both books were very helpful to me. I am part of the Society for Creative Anachronisms - a medieval recreational/educational group. I make a lot of garb for events. Both are great reference books. Historic Costumes and How to Make Them has patterns which make my life a lot easier. Love these books.