A few weeks ago, I came across a book – How to read a dress written by Lydia Edwards and I would like to share with you my impression.

Before we start to be fully engaged to historical costumes, we need to learn what we see on portraits, fashion plates or real dress exhibited in museums. And here is the question: “How to read what we see?”

This book is full of photos of real garments from the 16th to the 20th century exhibited in the museums all over the world, let`s mention Victoria and Albert Museum – London, McCord Museum – Montreal, Swan Guildford Historical Society – Western Australia. All pictured dress have short description dress itself and description of neckline, sleeves bodice, skirts, trims, fabrics…

When I found this book, I expected the book will contains more details a deeper description such as folding fabric, layering, gathering ruffles etc. In my opinion, there is little information about that. The dress are described in very simple way for example „a square-shaped neckline“, „rounded skirt silhouette“.

I would recommend this book to beginners as the book contains vocabulary related with fashion and historical facts and the pictures show historical features of particular era.