Art & Architecture Collection > Costume and Fashion History: A Guide to Resources

Women’s Clothing and Fashion

The majority of publications on costume history relate to feminine dress. This reality reflects the social perception that the fashion business is all about women’s clothing, although recent scholarship is seeking to redress this imbalance. While men largely control the fashion industry, women-centric books and magazines continue to flood the marketplace. In fact, women’s garments only really achieved new direction in the twentieth century, when they were able to adopt masculine trousers and suits.

Carter, Ernestine. The changing world of fashion: 1900 to the present. New York: Putnam, 1977. (MMC 79-2599)
Reviews the 20th century’s major feminine clothing transitions, from hemlines to silhouettes.

Dorner, Jane. Fashion: the changing shape of fashion through the years. London: Octopus Books, 1974. (MMC 77-83)
A textbook-like visual and descriptive survey of changes (however minute) in women’s dress.

Ewing, Elizabeth. Dress and undress: a history of women’s underwear. London: Batsford, 1978. (MMV 86-53)
Examines how changes in undergarments demonstrate a “liberation” of the female body from passive to active mode.

Moore, Doris Langley-Levy. The woman in fashion. London; New York: Batsford, 1949. (MME)
A classic study of how women came to appropriate fashion leadership.

Steele, Valerie. The corset: a cultural history. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. (JFF 02-476)
This book traces the development of and use of this all-important foundation undergarment.

Steele, Valerie. Fashion and eroticism: ideals of feminine beauty from the Victorian era to the Jazz Age. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. (3-MME 85-1642)
Looks at the social and psychological factors behind women’s dress as it changed during the early modern era.

Warren, Geoffrey. Fashion accessories since 1500. London: Unwin Hyman; New York: Drama Book Pub., 1987. (MMV 88-3041)
A century-by-century examination of adornment, including headgear, gloves, shoes, handbags, and related decorative elements.

Waugh, Nora. Corsets and crinolines. London: Batsford, 1954. (MMV+)
An early, but still influential, review of women’s clothes for a historical period.

Waugh, Norah. The cut of women’s clothes 1600-1930. London: Faber, 1968. (MMC)
Provides a chronological summary of how feminine garments were shaped and tailored.