fashion

If only my grandfather were this fashionable! This handsome book shows off 19th century ladies and gentlemen dressing for such sartorial activities as morning walking, evening dinner, riding in a carriage, sitting in a drawing room, and “Court dress for her majesty’s birthday.” Each plate is hand-colored with the addition of gold and silver. The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives' copy is bound in the original board and suede, with linen labels, and a beautiful embroidered bookmark bound within to mark your favorite satirical story.

Like many jewelry companies in Europe and America, Adolph Scott Ltd. Birmingham, jewellers of England, sold not only personal jewelry of all kinds, but many other objects made from metals and silver. They sold pocket and wristwatches, many types of bracelets, brooches, religious medals, and rings. This catalog features cigarette cases, eyeglass frames, mirrors and compacts, calling and business card cases, chain bags and purses, cigarette holders, flasks and silver baby rattles, even gold and silver safety pins.

This book, with examples of 1935 French advertising design, is part of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s Special Collections materials on typography and graphic design. With text, design, and layout by Alex Pinon, this volume is a fascinating look into advertising typography by one of the leading French type foundries of the period. Alex Pinon (1900-1961) started his career in typography and fashion illustration after the First World War; during the 1950s he was a prominent cover illustrator of bestsellers of popular literature.

This full-color, beautifully illustrated book focuses on the amethysts of Catalan country in Uruguay. In both English and German, Amethyst Uruguay details the past 200 years of the mining of these precious purple stones and of the people and cultures involved in those operations. It also includes fascinating analysis of the geology and mineralogy of the amethyst. The highlight, of course, is a generous series of richly colored photographs of these beautiful gems. Author Reinhard Balzer collects and studies gems and minerals, with a particular interest in amethysts.

The mola is a famous Panamanian handicraft created with intricate reverse-applique handwork made by the Guna, and represent important symbols of their culture. The layers of brightly-colored fabric form animals or geometric shapes, and are used to decorate the blouses of Guna women. The most outstanding designs take hours of complex sewing to complete and can be a source of status, and a display of artistic expression and ethnic identity.

The ancient city of Palmyra was, for a number of centuries, an important trading center for materials transported across the Silk Road to and from many points in Asia and the Middle East. Much of our current understanding of silk in antiquity comes from the study of material from Palmyra. This book on Palmyra textiles picks up from earlier scholarship, seeking to identify the origin of these silks and to expand their cultural context.

Carpets and Fabrics is a portfolio volume about the famous series of textile design pattern books published in 1929 by Charles Moreau in Paris. Textile artist Sonia Delaunay edited this collection of textiles, created by her contemporary Art Deco and modernist designers. Like her own work, the designs incorporate geometric shapes and abstract patterns for rugs and fabrics, the idea of modernism being that the overall design of interiors and fashion be a coordinated look.