Offers advice and techniques for women with full figures to modify store-bought dress patterns to create custom garments that fit and flatter their individual bodies.

Vintage guide offered turn-of-the-century seamstresses clear instructions for altering patterns and creating shirt-blouses, skirts, wedding gowns, coats, maternity wear, children's clothing, and other apparel.

Rich selection of dressmakers' patterns from popular, late-19th-century magazine The Voice of Fashion includes 50 garments for women, from day and evening dresses to tennis outfits and undergarments. 498 illustrations.

This curated selection of vintage articles is an invaluable resource for anyone passionate about dressmaking, millinery, and tailoring women’s clothing. Woman's Dress is a comprehensive collection of tips and techniques from the golden age of fashion craftsmanship. Readers will find step-by-step instructions for creating exquisite dresses, skirts, blouses, and other garments, as well as expert guidance on hat making and the finer points of tailoring. The articles, written by experienced practitioners and fashion experts of their time, cover a broad range of topics, including fabric selection, pattern drafting, sewing techniques, and finishing touches. Reviving the charm and sophistication of vintage dressmaking, Woman's Dress not only preserves the technical knowledge of the past but also captures the elegance and style of golden-age fashion.

Pam Inder explores the evolution of the woman's fashion over the long nineteenth century - from the late Georgians to the Edwardians.

This work focuses on the efforts toward reforming women's dress that took place in Europe and America in the latter half of the 18th century and the first decade of the 20th century, and the types of garments adopted by women to overcome the challenges posed by fashionable dress. It considers the many advocates for reform and examines their motives, their arguments for change, and how they promoted improvements in women's fashion. Though there was no single overarching dress reform movement, it reveals similarities among the arguments posed by diverse groups of reformers, including especially the equation of reform with an ideal image of improved health. Drawing on a variety of primary and secondary sources in the USA and Europe - including the popular press, advice books for women, allopathic and alternative medical literature, and books on aesthetics, art, health, and physical education - the text makes a significant contribution to costume studies, social history, and women's studies.

This beautifully illustrated book explores the considerable impact of fashions created by and for women by tracing a historical and conceptual lineage of female designers—from unidentified dressmakers in eighteenth-century France to contemporary makers who are leading the direction of fashion today. Stunning new photographs of exceptional garments from the unparalleled collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute complement insightful essays that consider notions of anonymity, visibility, agency, and absence/omission, highlighting celebrated designers and forgotten histories alike to reveal women’s impact on the field of fashion. The publication includes garments from French houses such as Vionnet, Schiaparelli, and Mad Carpentier to American makers like Ann Lowe, Claire McCardell, and Isabel Toledo, along with contemporary designers such as Rei Kawakubo, Iris van Herpen, Simone Rocha, and Anifa Mvuemba. Situating the works within a larger social context, this overdue look at female-led design is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of fashion.