Costume Worldwide.

Costume Worldwide: A Historical Sourcebook Featuring the Classic Artworks of Friedrich Hottenroth & Auguste Racinet. Melissa Leventon, consultant editor. Thames & Hudson. [pounds sterling]19.95. 352 pages. ISBN 978-0-500-28701-9. This is an interesting book because it combines illustrations from two nineteenth-century illustrators, one French (Racinet) and one German (Hottenroth) with a modern text from a team of experts. This text both explains the illustrations and describes the history of dress up to the middle of the nineteenth century. Melissa Leventon has divided the text into two parts: the first traces the dress of ancient Egypt, Rome. Europe (four chapters). East and Southeast Asia. South Asia, Anatolia, Persia and Central Asia, and Africa, Oceania and the American Indians. The second section has two extended analyses. The fist concerns the elements of dress: how it has changed, what were its functions and so forth. The second concerns accessories, e.g. hats, belts, footwear, gloves etc. The book's achievements are therefore twofold: first it gives us a chance to see these famous illustrations; second, it gives us, through the contributors' notes, a precise and informed history of dress up to 1850. The 1000 illustrations are a delight. (P.P.F.)