Talbot Hughes drew and measured the real garments: what people actually wore, century by century, with the cut, the trimmings and the dimensions an artist or dressmaker would need to reproduce them.
About the Book
1913Published
Talbot HughesAuthor
27Chapters
31Pages on this site
Dress Design: An Account of Costume for Artists and Dressmakers is Talbot Hughes’ practical history of what people wore. Hughes was a painter and a collector of historic clothing, and the book is built on garments he owned and measured rather than on portraits alone.
The chapters run from prehistoric dress through to the nineteenth century, treating male and female costume separately and giving particular attention to the character of trimmings in each period.
This digital edition presents the complete keyed text; the volume’s many plates are its other half.
This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1913 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.