From Codpiece to Three Piece: The History of Fashion

We all wear clothes. When we get up in the morning many of us make a choice as to what we wear. Even those who have their dress proscribed for them by their social situation or their occupation may make personal decisions about how to wear a garment or what to wear underneath it. Dress forms part of the identity we show to the world; it expresses messages of status, ethnicity, age and gender. Yet such mores have shifted throughout history, as this book, compiled from the pages of History Today magazine, reveals. Inside, discover when a person's clothing began to matter, and why; learn about the Macaronis, a dandyish precursor to modern-day hipsters and metrosexuals; read about the surprisingly exotic clothes warn by Cromwell and the Puritans; find out why ripped garments were the height of good tailoring in 15th-century Europe, and why a French king was forced to outlaw shoes shaped like the male appendage. Additionally, the book explores the rise and fall of fur, and why the unwieldy crinoline was so popular in the Victorian era.