A History of Costume

Rating:
Summary: Good detailed reference
Review: The text of this book is dry, but very informative. There are many sketched and black and white illustrations, but not enough to fully support the text. (I recommend Boucher's 20,000 Years of Fashion as a companion). The patterns give a better idea of the construction of the clothes, but they are approximations and no tips are given for making your own. Make sure you refer to other sources before using his patterns. This book is most useful for its detailed descriptions of specific periods, including not just the cut and style of the period, but also material, shoes, hairstyles, accessories, and who wore what and how and on what occasions.

Rating:
Summary: Good detailed reference
Review: The text of this book is dry, but very informative. There are many sketched and black and white illustrations, but not enough to fully support the text. (I recommend Boucher's 20,000 Years of Fashion as a companion). The patterns give a better idea of the construction of the clothes, but they are approximations and no tips are given for making your own. Make sure you refer to other sources before using his patterns. This book is most useful for its detailed descriptions of specific periods, including not just the cut and style of the period, but also material, shoes, hairstyles, accessories, and who wore what and how and on what occasions.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book, indespensabl when costuming
Review: This book has helped me enormously when I was trying to costume many plays and events. Though the patterns in the book are not quite exact, they give so good of a beginning for costume work that they have helped so much in the detail work.

Rating:
Summary: Handle with Care!
Review: This can be an aggravating book. On the plus side, Kohler includes pictures of a great many extant garments, which are invaluable as a resource (the book's value as a source rises considerably after 1500 for this reason). On the other hand, there are many "patterns"--especially in the medieval period--which, unless you read carefully, can be interpreted as being taken from extant garments, and the introduction claims almost outright that these diagrams are "correct." They are not, being instead Kohler's own hypotheses. Many of them do not work as patterns. I have known many a beginner who took these diagrams as gospel and have ended up with nothing resembling an actual medieval garment. Use the illustrations (but not the "patterns") and the book can have some degree of usefulness.