fashion

This volume on Western style encompasses everything from humble denim jeans to the fanciest rhinestone-covered cowboy costumes. Brimming with photos, it presents a history of the American West spanning its early days to the present, told through clothing. You’ll find a buckskin hunting shirt from the 1820s, Angora chaps worn by a Colorado cowboy in the 1920s, and a colorful gauze fiesta dress from the 1950s made by Thunderbird Fashions of Prescott, AZ.

Nothing says Southwestern style like a great pair of cowboy boots! This book from the Costume collection at the National Museum of American History Library gives information on the “anatomy” of a cowboy boot along with descriptions of the different materials used in their manufacture. The author tells a lively history of the bootmaking industry and features a number of well-known bootmakers. The artful photography of Jim Arndt showcases the wide variety and enduring appeal of American cowboy boots.

This marvelous book puts its best foot forward, covering everything from profiles of famous contemporary shoe designers like Manolo Blahnik to historical insights and images of changing fashions in footwear. Platforms, boots, stilettos, sandals, and slippers – this book has them all. Volumes like this in the Costume collection at the National Museum of American History Library help clothing curators study shoes in the museum collections, but they also are used by other researchers to date artworks and photographs based on what the people pictured are wearing.

Charles Gibson (1867-1944) is one of the best known illustrators of the Gilded Age primarily due to his creation, the Gibson Girl. As an illustrator he became talented in depicting relationships between men and women and submitted illustrations to such magazines as Harper's Weekly, Life, and Harper's Monthly. In 1890 he introduced a modernized beautiful female character with upswept hair, fashionable clothes, and imbued with independence and glamor. The Gibson Girl attained nationwide celebrity and had songs and plays written about her.