Book Review: Patterns of Fashion 4

On the second day of Christmas: a 4th Patterns of Fashion review.

Patterns of Fashion 4: The Cut and Construction of Linen Shirts, Smocks, Neckwear, Headwear and Accessories for Men and Women c.1540-1660 by Janet Arnold (additional material by Jenny Tiramani and Santina M. Levey)

Volume 4 is approximately contemporaneous with Patterns of Fashion 3 (1540-1660 v. 1560-1620), but instead of gowns and doublets, it focuses on linen undergarments and accessories. The size and formatting closely resembles that of volume 3: it's 128 pages, includes photographs, etc. The main points of difference are that the garment photographs are in color (47 pages), and are separated from the general information on period garment construction (11 pages, includes a half-dozen illustrations of period stitching techniques and some embroidery information).  I really liked how much detail and how many images were given for each garment--the larger ones have an entire page of color close-ups, with similar garments in contemporary portraits included for comparison; some even have portraits of the original wearer! The smaller items have a half or third of a page, but each still gets multiple shots and contextualizing information.  One neat inclusion in this book is a 2-page tutorial (with photographs) of how modern costumers can starch ruffs at home.

Because many of the garments in this book are small (ruffs, bands, etc.) there are often two or more patterns on a given page; the text descriptions for anything smaller than a shirt/smock also tend to share space. Fortunately, this means that 85 different garments or parts are featured-- 15 womens' smocks, 15 mens' shirts, 20 ruffs and related garments, 22 bands, 14 coifs/caps and 9 other accessories (gloves, drawers, boothose, a purse).

Regarding burial clothing, only three of the garments featured in this book are so identified: Nils Sture's shirt, bands from another Sture shirt, and Claes Bielkenstierna's shirt (all Swedish, incidentally).  The commentary on Nils Sture's shirt includes non-graphic discussion of wounds. The pictures of the Sture garments do not obviously show the blood and damage mentioned in the text; the photographs of Bielkenstierna's shirt, and a shirt worn by Gustav II Adolph do show bloodstains from battle-wounds (pages 24-25, if one wishes to avoid seeing them).


Stars: 5

Accuracy: High.  All original garments, lots of contemporary portraiture included.

Difficulty: Advanced (for reproducing garments). All levels for appreciating garment construction.

Overall Impression: Another fabulously informative book.  It meshes really well with volume 3 (two of the shirts were worn with doublets featured in volume 3), and has beautiful close-up images of the original garments. A must for 16th-17th century costumers, and those interested in embroidery and sewing from that time period.