hrj

(The ongoing blogging of the books I bought at Kalamazoo.)

Scott, Margaret. 2011. Fashion in the Middle Ages. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. ISBN 978-1-60606-061-2

This is a pretty little glossy exhibition publication from the Getty's exhibit of the same name in 2011. It's a slim book (120pp) but lavishly illustrated for the size (89 color plates), which is hardly surprising given the nature and purpose of the publication. The exhibition was focused on fashion as depicted in manuscript art and the book has the same focus, although there are also a handful of pictures of textiles and surviving garments. The text has some basic background information on medieval clothing, clothing for different classes and occupations, materials and styles, and other topics. There is nothing startling or groundbreaking and I would hesitate to suggest the book as a starting point for someone just beginning to study the field. But there are lots and lots of pretty pictures, provided with full information about the source and context of the art, and most of them are not from the standard default library of images of medieval costume illustrations, so the book is worth added to a browsing library for the images alone. But if you're looking for a once-stop single-source reference on medieval costume, then move along, there's nothing to see here.