A delightful book! Costume in Detail is full of diagrams and drawings, explaining the construction of gowns. If you've ever been curious about what goes on inside a gown, or just like to look through books when trying to get some ideas going for your latest sewing project, this is the book for you.

Text is sparse in this book, but the drawings and little notes speak for themselves. The care taken with showing the details is outstanding! On the average page, there is a drawing of a extant gown (mostly from collections and museums in England), along with various measurements; detail sketches of things such as collars, boning placement, etc.; and sometimes sketches of the fabric's pattern.

This book is not like the Janet Arnold books, as it does not have patterns of any kind. However, many of the gowns featured in the book are very close to some of the gowns in Patterns of Fashion 1 and 2, making this a very handy book to use in conjunction with Janet Arnold's.

Overall, this book is a very valuable resource whether you recreate fashions of times gone by, like to study details of historical costumes, or just like to research about them. Definitely worth adding to your costume bookshelf!-Reviewed by C.

Artwork is October (1877) by James Tissot, courtesy of CGFA.