What People Wore

Cover

Title What People Wore

Author Douglas Gorsline

ISBN 0-486-28162-0

Publisher Dover Publications, Inc.

Category Non-Fiction (Reference)

Shira's Rating

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What It's About

This book was originally published in 1951 by Bonanza Books under the title What People Wore: A Visual History of Dress from Ancient Times to Twentieth-Century America. With over 1,800 line drawings, it has very minimal text: captions identifying where & when each ensemble is from, and a few Historical Survey pages that give a timeline of world events to corresponded to the era of the costumes in each chapter.

Although the book contains many wonderful, detailed drawings I gave it just one star because it's almost useless to people who are interested in historical garb from the Middle East. Although it has four pages of pictures from ancient Egypt, Assyria, and Persia, the rest of the book is focused on western Europe.

The picture of the book's cover at the top of this page is very representative of the types of illustrations it contains.

Its Good Points

You'll probably like this book very much if:

You're planning to do a Pharaonic depiction or other special theatrical show focused on the ancient Middle East. What People Wore may give you some costuming ideas.
You're looking for source information about the clothing of Western Europe during the Medieval and Renaissance eras or more recently. It's a rich source of illustrations for historical European garb.
You're interested in the arrival of "belly dance" in the United States in the 1890's and you'd like to see what the prudish American public was wearing at that time.

On The Negative Side....

The Middle Eastern information is minimal, only 6 pages total: two of text, four of drawings. All the Middle East pictures depict ancient times. There is nothing from the era of the Crusades, the Ottomans, or any other era from within the past 1,000 years.

In Conclusion

If you find historical European garb interesting, you'll like this book very much. But if you're researching historical Middle Eastern clothing, this is the wrong book for you.