The Book of Costume I-II. [antikvár]

Introduction Years of work, research and study in the field of costume have led me to three conclusions about books on costume which I do not think are valid for me alone. 1. Books illustrated by the author are usually to be deplored, and many of them are terrible. 2. The best book is the one with the most pictures, all of them contemporary documents; the best text is based on the words of contemporaries—friends, enemies, or travelers. 3. The physical location or source of every picture, and the number of every manuscript should be given, if possible. as a help in finding colored reproductions, further information, or more illustrations from a series. The ideal book of costume, to my way of thinking, would provide so many pictures (all documents, arranged chronologically, and in color) that the story would tell itself without words. This book was originally planned, when commissioned more than seven years ago, as a "Dictionary of Costume" in one volume, with compressed chart-outlines of the de-. velopment of dress, by civilization or century. Because of difficulties in obtaining pictures, the book lay in abeyance through the war. During these years, I found time to read more source books than research for the theater had previously permitted. I had long known that plays have a stubborn will of their own. Now I discovered that this is true also of books. The proposed dictionary had become, after the first Christian centuries, a documented survey of European and American dress and ways, calling for a very large number of illustrations. The Boo]{ of Costume is now a chronological survey of dress through the ages. Each segment-civilization or century has been given an historical summary and an outline of changes in its dress. These are followed by a picture section, which is subdivided by centuries and by countries, as regional differentiations become well established. When a great culture is segregated by time, it has been massed under one heading, for example: Egypt, under which will be found neighboring peoples and aliens as seen by the Egyptians. The order in which countries are presented changes with the fluctuations of their influence on dress. Basic comments will be found under the leading country, and difierentiations defined under the dress of others. By XIXc., when all fashion is basically French, illustrations are again massed by chronology alone. It became clear that bibliographical and documentary material and acknowledgments might clutter and disturb the text. An Appendix was established to hold such material, which will be found there, either under general chapter headings, or under the number of relevant illus- trations. The Appendix also gives primary sources; manuscripts, with indications about their availability in reprint or facsimile; early engraved books and series of plates on costume; present-day authorities, and more recendy published books to which we are indebted for facts and pictures (since they are apt to be well illustrated, comprehensive, and to lead to collateral material). When space allowed, the words of original authorities are quoted in the text. Limitations of space have occasionally made it necessary to withdraw them to the Appendix, under the illustration number. For reasons which are explained in the Appendix, no bibliography of books on costume has been attempted, but a few books with documentary illustrations or special usefulness have been indicated there. In the Index, three sorts of material will be found: names and the location of biographies of artists; of named subjects shown in illustrations; and material immediately relative to costume. A complete index would obviously be more unwieldy than useful. Our costume index has selected outstanding examples in illustration and important references in text, from the many thousands of possibilities in our two volumes. It is almost impossible to redraw (even with the most laudable intention of clarification) without falsifying another age in terms of one's own. Illustrations redrawn at several removes from Racinet (where they were not very good to begin with, although largely taken from Willemin, an excellent book of its kind) seem to me inexcusable in the age of photo-engraving. The amount of collateral information you absorb, as you get facts from documentary illustrations, more than repays the extra effort which may be required in research. Where we have used redrawings, it is usually because the original has disappeared, has deteriorated since the record was made, or is difficult or impossible to photograph. Since there can never be enough pictures, they must be threaded together on a text, and texts are even more suspect than redrawings. All clues to the original authority for a statement are apt to have been sieved out, many books back. The best and often the only really good information about dress comes from books which are not concerned primarily—or at all—with costume: old histories, books of travel, diaries, memoirs and account books, even novels; works on archaeology; histories of civilizations and their arts; catalogs and volumes sponsored by museums, libraries, universities, learned societies, and organizations like the Roxburghe Club, Walpole Society and Society of Antiquaries; compilations of photographs and prints and art books, sponsored by such publishers as Georg Hirth, Belvedere, Hyperion, Pantheon, Phaidon, and ed. Tel and Belles-lettres; volumes like those of D'Allemagne