Mary FernaldHistoric 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.

I was looking for a book with more technical information on how simple, historical clothes were made. However, this is a pretty good book for what it does cover.

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.

Good information, not so good pictures and problems with the labeling of he patterns. It is still worthwhile.Every pattern maker uses their own way of marking things. I make my own patterns, but I am anal retentive and forgetful so mine are labeled for an idiot to read. This book uses Roman Numerals to identify major pattern pieces and the numerals are next to the pattern, not smack in the middle of them. I would think that writing 'Front' Side Front', or 'Back' on a piece would not be that hard. She uses letters to notate lines as in geometry and that isn't too bad. Again, writing 'Side', 'Top' and 'Side Front' doesn't seem like it should have been as hard as it appeared to be for this author. Many good pattern shapes are included which makes this worth getting. Just be patient with the patterns which do indicate that they are made for a 5'8" man and a 5'6" woman.\, so hopefully that means that using a projector would make things really easy.

Not for a newly, but if you have some knowledge about sewing clothes it is a wonderful book!

The vendor was great because book was shipped very fast but this book is not for anyone who needs more detailed instructions or if you’re a beginner. It’s a good addition but you’ll need more reinforcements.

This book is a good start as a survey of clothing overtime but not a useful tool for construction or tailoring.

This book is more of a history lesson on who wore what when...not much along the lines of actually sewing historical garments...I was bored to death by it.

If I’d got this from the library it would have been instantly returned. I’m totally disgusted by the quality and detail of the book.There are no illustrations of each type of costume as worn only brief descriptions. The drawings are sketchy and poor. The few illustrations that there are are blurred and the black and white plates make it almost impossible to clearly make out anything with any kind of clarity.This is my first Dover book and if this is the quality of illustration and detail it will be my last.If I could return it I would.

I used this to make a Catherine of Aragon costume. Some good ideas in this book. Patterns were not particularly easy to copy and instructions for assembly of garments were not clear, a beginner would find it very difficult to follow. Very poor pictures of original costumes.

A decent reference to make clothing but could have had better patterns to work from. Worth getting as it has some insights not found elsewhere.

this is a fabulous book, I found it better as a source of knowledge and reference than anything else as I had terrible problems sizing from the patterns BUT their system of working is totally different than mine so that is to be expected when you have your own way. I did recommend it to a friend and she has bought it as well just to add to her reference and knowledge as well. we take it in turns buying books reviewing them in private and decide if they are good to get.

Even at £3.13 this is a waste of money for anyone wanting to make historic costumes.The title says: historic costumes and how to make themwell, it's about costume, brief descriptions and a couple of line drawings, that's about it.don't waste money, get it from the library.There are far better books out there including the Carl Kohler one.