An alluring, opulent showcase of hundreds of beautiful historic clothing items and accessories“High Style is filled with fashion inspiration and information. . . . Nearly every page…includes a captivating photo of one of the collection’s lavish garments or accessories.”—Threads   Published for the first time in paperback, this lavishly illustrated volume originally appeared in 2010 to celebrate the transfer of the Brooklyn Museum’s historic costume collection to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. This comprehensive survey highlights more than 200 works selected from this internationally renowned collection, which comprises nearly 25,000 extraordinary women’s and men’s garments and accessories from the 18th through the 20th century. Among the featured works are sumptuous 19th-century gowns from the House of Worth, exquisite dresses by the great 20th-century French couturiers, iconic Surrealist-based designs of Elsa Schiaparelli, sportswear classics from pioneer American female designers, and the incomparable draped and tailored creations of Charles James, along with exceptional shoes and accessories. 

Both gorgeously designed and practical in function, this 2018 engagement calendar features images of vibrant textile designs and the art that inspired them. In 1945, The Metropolitan Museum of Art invited textile designers to explore their vast collection for inspiration resulting in beautiful, vibrant designs. Bound in a cloth case with a ribbon bookmark.

This is a study of Japanese country textiles, covering design, techniques and the social context, taking examples from the V&A Museum's varied collection. The book examines the way in which country textiles have been categorized in the 20th century. Woven from cotton- and linen-like fabrics and patterned by resist-dyeing techniques, these textiles range from indigo-blue futon covers to the coloured robes of Okinawa. The book examines their complex and time-consuming manufacture and the varied repertoire of effects employed by the weavers and dyers of 18th- and 19th-century Japan. It places the textiles within their historical context in order to gain a greater understanding of the social, religious, political and economic significance, and concludes with a brief exploration of the survival of traditional textiles within the highly mechanized and urbanized society of modern Japan.

In honor of the Fabric Workshop and Museum’s 40th anniversary, Process and Practice tells a story of contemporary art at FWM that highlights process along with product. It documents FWM’s history of collaboration with established and emerging artists-in-residence since the 2002 publication of New Materials as New Media. Some of the over 30 artists featured include Mark Bradford, Ann Hamilton, Ursula von Rydingsvard, Richard Tuttle, Sarah Sze, Nick Cave, Theaster Gates, Joan Jonas and Trisha Brown, among many others. Also featured are essays by Nancy Princenthal, Patterson Sims and Susan Lubowsky Talbott, FWM’s current director.

Preserving Textiles: A Guide for the Nonspecialist offers guidance on how to properly store, clean, and display everything from wedding gowns to woven wall-hangings. It also explains how to clean textiles to prevent damage, how to store fabrics using appropriate techniques, and how to display historical costumes and art objects using museum tricks of the trade. Also included are recommendations for lighting, climate control, and other environmental factors. Preserving Textiles includes a glossary of terms, a bibliography, and a list of suppliers and recommended materials. The 96-page book is generously illustrated with drawings and photographs, including 10 color photographs. The book was written by Dorothy Stites Alig, conservator of textiles at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and Harold F. Mailand, former textiles conservator at the IMA and now in private practice.

William Ivey Long (b. 1947) is a leading costume designer for the stage, film, and television, whose creativity, artistry, and craftsmanship have earned him ovations throughout the theater community and beyond. A defining presence on Broadway, he has won six Tony Awards for costume design and a National Arts Award for Fashion. Ivey is unique in the history of costume design, operating at once in the atelier traditions of court costumers of Louis XIV and in the dazzling mode of contemporary Parisian couturiers. His work combines an understanding of art history with bespoke fashion skills to create visual illusion and material reality.  William Ivey Long tells the story of an American legend through a review of his illustrious career and an analysis of his work; copious illustrations of his sketches, fabric swatches, and costume designs; and discussion of the productions brought to life by his award-winning costumes, including Cinderella, Little Dancer, Grease Live!, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show Let’s Do the Time Warp Again.  

Robert Lehman was a member of the first generation of American collectors to embrace what we call modern art. This lavishly illustrated volume catalogues 207 nineteenth- and twentieth-century European drawings that are now part of the Robert Lehman Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. More than three-quarters of these drawings are French, but there are also sheets from Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Most are from the nineteenth century, but Robert Lehman also acquired, in some cases from the artists themselves, a number of drawings made during his own lifetime. The catalogue begins with drawings by David and Goya, the two most important artists in Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century, and it concludes with a group of watercolors made in the 1940s by the painter Marcel Vertès. Among the French drawings are outstanding sheets by David, Delacroix, Ingres, Chassériau, Corot, and Daumier. Drawings by Renoir, Morisot, Sisley, Pissarro, and Degas represent the Impressionists, and Robert Lehman also assembled one of the finest private collections of Neo-Impressionist drawings, including canonical works by Seurat, Signac, Cross, and Pissarro. E... [Read More]

This exuberantly illustrated book celebrates the sophistication, vivacity, and significance of improvisational African-Aemrican quilts, both as artistic achievements and as expressions of African-American traditions. The knowledge, attitudes, and values carried across the Atlantic by enslaved Africans appear to have informed a quiltmaking tradition so powerful that, to this day, it preserves its identity in a special province of African-American quilts. Such "Afro-traditional" quilts are made by people who have no formal art training and who usually do not consider themselves artists; they learned their craft and absorbed its aesthetics by watching and helping their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers who, in turn, learned form previous generations. The resulting--often highly idiosyncratic--quilts call out to be seen as the works of art that they are. The brilliance of this work must be partially credited to a tradition which encourages individual expression and provides a context in which the talents of individual artists can flourish. Improvisation, pervasive in black African art and familiar as a basic element of many African-American musical forms, is a vital force in this tradit... [Read More]

Clothes define people. A person’s attire, whether it’s a sari, kimono, or business suit, is an essential code to his or her culture, class, personality, even faith. Founded in 1978, the Kyoto Costume Institute recognizes the importance of understanding clothes from sociological, historical, and artistic perspectives. With one of the world’s most extensive clothing collections, the KCI has amassed a wide range of historical garments, underwear, shoes, and fashion accessories dating from the 18th century to the present day.Showcasing the Institute’s vast collection, Fashion History is a fascinating excursion through the last three centuries of clothing trends. Featuring impeccable photography of clothing expertly displayed and arranged on custom-made mannequins, it is a testimony to attire as “an essential manifestation of our very being” and to the Institute's passion for fashion as a complex and intricate art form.The book's authors include some of the smartest minds and sharpest eyes in fashion studies: Akiko Fukai (Chief Curator of The Kyoto Costume Institute), Tamami Suoh (Curator of The Kyoto Costume Institute), Miki Iwagami (Lecturer of fashion history at Sugino Fa... [Read More]

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Textiles and Costume Design

Clear and accurate in its guidance, Medieval Costume and How to Make It portrays the clothing of the 12th through the 15th centuries according to the wearer s social class, with chapters divided to cover individual professions. So in addition to royal garments, here are the clothes of clerics, doctors, merchants, musicians, knights, artisans, farmers, and laborers all with much useful historical information, and richly illustrated with images from tapestries and illuminated manuscripts of the period as well as drawings and diagrams. Helpful advice covers choosing fabrics; placement of seams; draping and folding garments; how to walk, dance, and climb

Two Centuries of Costume in America, MDCXX-MDCCCXX Volume 02