29 of 30 people found the following review helpful
as good as all the other Frances Grimble books, March 21, 2006
A Kid’s Review
This review is from: Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume 1: Undergarments, Bodices, Skirts, Overskirts, Polonaises, and Day Dresses 1877-1882 (Paperback)
This book contains patterns for the following:
corsets, hoopskirts and bustles (some)
underclothing and negligee wear (quite a few)
day and evening skirts (only about four)
day bodices (quite a few)
evening bodices (some)
overskirts (some)
polonaises (some)
day dresses (quite a few)
some = around ten
quite a few = over 20
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes victorian costuming. It not only works as a pattern book, but as a source book, having lots of pictures you can use for reference. Even if you just look through it, it really can help you understand the styles of that era.
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This review is from: Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume 1: Undergarments, Bodices, Skirts, Overskirts, Polonaises, and Day Dresses 1877-1882 (Paperback)
There’s just so MUCH material in this book–so many pictures and patterns and so many pages of hard-to-find information. Women’s styles of the period were intricate, with separate bodices, overskirts, and skirts, or with polonaises (a bodice with the overskirt attached) and skirts. This book separates patterns for bodices, skirts, overskirts, and polonaises to mix and match however you want. It also gives patterns for whole dresses, but you can mix their components too.
There are far more patterns for EVERYTHING than I’ve ever seen anywhere else. There were many, many ways of cutting and draping an overskirt or a polonaise. In this book it’s amazing to see fashion plates of overskirts that look similar in the plates, but the cut and drape shown by the pattern pieces is quite different. There are even 19 patterns for chemises.
This book will keep me busy for a long time!
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This review is from: Fashions of the Gilded Age, Volume 1: Undergarments, Bodices, Skirts, Overskirts, Polonaises, and Day Dresses 1877-1882 (Paperback)
I am very pleased with this book and I think it gives a load of information for a very reasonable price.
The book (together with vol.2) is overfilled with all kinds of garments you can imagine and for each sort of garment there are always many styles.
It is not directly a drafting book, it does not tell you how to draft your own bodice etc. by using your measurements, but the method of using the patterns and the enlarging rulers is very close to that and, as I think, it might produce a very good substitution for a custom-drafted dress with saving a lot of your time and being very simple to do. It is something between custom drafting and pre-sized patterns, because you create the garments by using your bust and back length measurement, which are the two most important measurements for making a garment suited to your proportions and it will probably need only little easy modifications like adding/substracting from waist and hip width and maybe some changes for the front length. But all possible and most frequent modifications are very well explained in the book.
It is all written in such a way that even with no or little knowledge of drafting, you’ll be able to produce a probably very well fitted garments.
For a drafting professional, it’s a good help when doing things like skirts, especially draped overskirts and all garments creating a shape or silhouette that is hard to figure out. Even if you won’t use the patterns for enlarging and draft the things yourself, you can very well keep to the shape of the patterns as you can see, unlike in so many pattern books, NUMBERS.
I think this book has the best ratio of the price and the information given of all costume book I’ve come through. It’s a pity that there are no such books for earlier periods:-(
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as good as all the other Frances Grimble books,
This book contains patterns for the following:
corsets, hoopskirts and bustles (some)
underclothing and negligee wear (quite a few)
day and evening skirts (only about four)
day bodices (quite a few)
evening bodices (some)
overskirts (some)
polonaises (some)
day dresses (quite a few)
some = around ten
quite a few = over 20
I would recommend this book for anyone who likes victorian costuming. It not only works as a pattern book, but as a source book, having lots of pictures you can use for reference. Even if you just look through it, it really can help you understand the styles of that era.
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|Wow!,
There’s just so MUCH material in this book–so many pictures and patterns and so many pages of hard-to-find information. Women’s styles of the period were intricate, with separate bodices, overskirts, and skirts, or with polonaises (a bodice with the overskirt attached) and skirts. This book separates patterns for bodices, skirts, overskirts, and polonaises to mix and match however you want. It also gives patterns for whole dresses, but you can mix their components too.
There are far more patterns for EVERYTHING than I’ve ever seen anywhere else. There were many, many ways of cutting and draping an overskirt or a polonaise. In this book it’s amazing to see fashion plates of overskirts that look similar in the plates, but the cut and drape shown by the pattern pieces is quite different. There are even 19 patterns for chemises.
This book will keep me busy for a long time!
Was this review helpful to you?
|Great for inspiration and making accurate patterns,
I am very pleased with this book and I think it gives a load of information for a very reasonable price.
The book (together with vol.2) is overfilled with all kinds of garments you can imagine and for each sort of garment there are always many styles.
It is not directly a drafting book, it does not tell you how to draft your own bodice etc. by using your measurements, but the method of using the patterns and the enlarging rulers is very close to that and, as I think, it might produce a very good substitution for a custom-drafted dress with saving a lot of your time and being very simple to do. It is something between custom drafting and pre-sized patterns, because you create the garments by using your bust and back length measurement, which are the two most important measurements for making a garment suited to your proportions and it will probably need only little easy modifications like adding/substracting from waist and hip width and maybe some changes for the front length. But all possible and most frequent modifications are very well explained in the book.
It is all written in such a way that even with no or little knowledge of drafting, you’ll be able to produce a probably very well fitted garments.
For a drafting professional, it’s a good help when doing things like skirts, especially draped overskirts and all garments creating a shape or silhouette that is hard to figure out. Even if you won’t use the patterns for enlarging and draft the things yourself, you can very well keep to the shape of the patterns as you can see, unlike in so many pattern books, NUMBERS.
I think this book has the best ratio of the price and the information given of all costume book I’ve come through. It’s a pity that there are no such books for earlier periods:-(
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|