Vintage Fashion

Book excerpt: Vintage Fashion is the ultimate guide to the most exemplary women's clothing from the turn of the twentieth century through the end of the 1980s. Along with a detailed, authoritative text, this gorgeous book offers more than 250 outstanding full-color photographs showcasing the quality fabrics, innovative techniques, silhouettes, shapes, and exquisite workmanship that are testimony to enduring and influential styles. Each chapter focuses on a specific decade and is a rich survey of each era, placing the evolution of women's fashion in a cultural context. The most important designers and signature looks are discussed in detail and emphasized through beautiful illustrations, photographs, and fabric swatches. Finally, each chapter ends with a Key Looks feature that offers an at-a-glance view of the important shapes, colors, and details that defined each era. Vintage Fashion concludes with a shopping guide, which not only offers tips on where to buy vintage pieces, but also how to care for them, and glossaries on fashion terms and the century's most collectable and important designers. The definitive word on the most influential designers and looks of the twentieth century, this book is an invaluable resource for lovers of fashion and vintage clothing as well as a source of inspiration for designers and those looking to spice up their personal style.