History of Women's Fashion

Gr 6 Up—This peppy, zippy retrospective of women's fashion from 1900 to right about now is delightful and fun. The full-color retro-modern illustrations are indeed full color—in every sense of the word. Models display such fashion game changers as "Flapper Dress" (1926) and "Mary Quant Miniskirt" (1963) and also more recent revolutionary designs such as "Ballet Flats" (2009), "Pillbox Hat" (1960), and "Alexander McQueen Ensemble" (2010). The layout of this concertina book is clever: it can be paged through or unfolded and displayed chart-style. On one side of the six-and-a-half-foot-tall chart are the aforementioned illustrations; the other side goes more in depth about the pictured fashions, putting the images in context and providing designer bios for some objects. The title also features a section that discusses "Ten Things That Started Fashion Trends"—Coco Chanel is prominently featured, as are the World Wars, rock and roll, punk, and the Internet. It's interesting to see who and what gets mentioned on both sides of the chart (again, Chanel fares pretty well here, as do Dior, Gucci, and Balenciaga). The notations on the reverse are easily digested info bits and seem well researched.