The curse of selling things at Half Price Books is looking around at the other books while you wait for them to look through your books.
Which is how I came to own a copy of Joan Nunn's "Fashion in Costume: 1200-1980."
The book is divided into eight chapters. The first two, covering the Gothic and Rennaissance eras, each cover 250 years. The next two chapters cover the 17th and 18th centuries. Then there are chapters covering 1800-1850, 1850-1900, 1900-1940, and 1940-1980. (Later editions go up to 2000, but I don't know how they divided those chapters.)
Within each chapter, Joan Nunn divides the text into a few sections. She starts with some cultural background, then covers men's clothing, then women's, then children's. After that come sections dedicated to accessories and fabrics. The two chapters covering 1900-1980 also contain dedicated sportswear sections.
Of course, covering 250 or even just 40 years of fashion in one chapter is a lot! It's a bit disorganized in that regard. She'll talk about the evolution of one type of garment over the time frame of the chapter, then go back and repeat the process with another garment, so sometimes it's hard to tell what was worn when exactly and with what other garments.
The treasure trove here for historical costumers is the "Fabrics and Color" section. It goes into common fibers, colors, and weaves for the time period, and what different types of cloth were most often used for.
Now, the real draw of this book is the illustrations! There are 800+ black and white illustrations of historical clothing taken from contemporary sources. Actually, if you've already done a lot of research into portraits, fashion plates, photographs, etc, for certain periods, you'll likely find some familiar faces. (I spotted this one just flipping through.)
Overall, this is a great reference, starting point, and inspiration book if you're interested in western European and American fashion from a variety of time periods (whether for historical costuming, theatrical costuming, or other artistic purposes), but it's not great for going into detail for any eras or for learning about garment construction. Definitely pretty though, and I don't regret this impulse buy!
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