Books: Fashion in Detail

Oh, my poor neglected blog. Today's (brief) note is about availability of some very nice books. New high-quality softcover editions of the V&A's Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Fashion in Detail, and Nineteenth-Century Fashion in Detail have been released this spring (earlier editions were becoming hard to find). Both are full of close-up, full-color photographs of extant garments, with brief descriptions and line drawings of the complete items. They are absolutely beautiful, very affordable, and highly recommended if they correspond to your periods of interest. They're particularly useful for finishing and embellishment ideas; slightly less useful for complete garment reconstruction, since there aren't full-length photos.