Costume: 1066 to the Present

This is a great resource. It's not the book I thought it was. (My mistake of course!) But even so, I'm so happy to have it! This book will serve as a great guide when choosing time period for your costuming. It doesn't delve into great detail about each time period. There is little if any information about colors, fabrics and construction of garments. But it is a great book to point you in the direction you want to go.

I bought this book because I make Cloth Dolls and also mini dolls and the costume has to be authentic so looking at these styles enables me to make the exact costume I am looking for. Even if you have Fairs to go to you can also make these costumes for adults as well. It is very interesting to see what people wore at that time if you are interest in fashions during that time period.

Very detailed and for the serious history buff.

I often sew historical costumes for friends and clients. This book has helped me turn terminology that they don't understand into pictures they can point at! Unfortunately it's upper classes only. No Merchant class or lower class. Still an excellent resource though.

Excellent! Images are clear and give you a variety to look at, would recommend to all costumers for research and ideas.

Peacock puts together a book that focuses itself on British fashion of the royalty from 1066 through 2005. Pages are filled with designs that the royalty as well as the wealthy would have worn during this time period. They say a picture is worth 1000 words, and this book contains over 1000 pictures to demonstrate the changes in fashion over the years.The book has very little text in it. Each page is filled with 8 different designs, typically 4 are male fashion designs, and 4 are for women. What I do like about these designs is that each one has notes about trim, how garmets were fastened, hair styles, and information regarding proper head dress is also given. I feel if you are trying to recreate one of these designs this book would be helpful in getting the small details correct.While short on words, this book has many sketches, and much information is contained on each sketch. There is very little text, or any form of long dry reading here. You may even wished he spent more time going over the design changes in text. I feel this book does an excellent job of giving someone a feel for what clothing looked like in the time periods covered in this book.

Peacock's books should only be used for a very general feel of an era - if that! As all the outfits have been redrawn, the silhouettes are heavily influenced by the illustrator's time and personal eye. Books for true study and reference should use representations that are contemporary to the time period. His series of books are inaccurate and disappointing.

This sort of book might have been very helpful if you could rely on the pictures. It gives relatively many drawings for each period (though too few if you want to focus on one exact date), but I could never find out where the pictures came from, what were they based on, as I found so many obvious mistakes and fantasy elements that for a serious costumer, this would be an absolutely terrible and useless book. Besides, the pictures are not very well drawn, the illustrator wasn't as skilled as another painter of untrustworthy costumes, A.Racinet.This could be only help for people who want to have a general "overview" of the fashion history and its changes through decades, but I must add that the dresses depicted aren't always very typical for the period, which can spoil the general impression.

Lovely line drawing of pictures, but that's it. No descriptions of the garments of what they were made from etc. Also, the pictures are all the same size. No in depth pictures of hats or specific areas of dress.Also, a big negative is that the costumes are all from the elite side of society. If you wanted to know what the common man/woman wore instead of kings and queens, you are out of luck. I think I will try to get a better book.

I was looking for a book on period dress and hopefully tips on construction. What you get is a book full of black and white drawings of costume from 1066 to the present. Nothing about design or how clothes were designed. A bit light weight for me. Was expecting something more detailed.

very useful book if you are a costume student. Not sure how accurate they always are but clear little black and white pictures. Tutors quite negative about this book, but I liked it.

This is a great little reference book for the progression of popular costume designs through the Medieval period right through to the 1960's. It will not outline every single costume ever made in a given era, obviously, but for a quick reference of whether or not you are in the right area for the time period you are recreating it's spot-on.

not ideal at all as not very colourful and pictures very small not able to use for course. Not ;sure who it would suit