A HISTORY OF FASHION AND COSTUME: VOLUME 5 – THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Anne Rooney

Bailey Publishing Associates Ltd., Hove, England

Year 2005

Pages 64

An eight-volume set examining the development of costume and fashion and the social history that gave rise to it. It depicts the changing styles, processes, and trends – from the first people to wear clothes in the last Ice Age to the courtly fashion of medieval Europe and to the globalization of Western style – that led us to the clothing of today. This volume enlightens that the 18th century saw the beginnings of the modern fashion industry in Europe and America. Fashion magazines appeared and the first fashion plates were produced. For the first time, designs could be published and copied widely. Fashions began to change quickly, led by Paris and London. Designs were dictated not by practical needs but by trends in art, culture, and politics, by new discoveries, technological innovations, and scientific advances. Some European fashions were, in fact, so impractical they rendered their wearers almost incapable of everyday activity.