Le Costume Historique….Vol. 4

1888

Special Collections GT510 R274 1888

Paris: Librarie de Firmin-Didot et Cie

Auguste Racinet’s six-volume series Le Costume Historique contains nearly 500 plates on dress. In this impressive work he establishes the methods employed by dress historians everywhere. He utilises multiple sources such as surviving artefacts, portraiture, illustrations, monumental sculpture, and texts by voyagers and other observers. Although focusing mainly on European social and military elites, he reconstructs a material history of dress since antiquity which is truly global in scope. This unique series enriches costume history and demonstrates the continued allure of dress, long after its moment in fashion has passed.