Dress in France in Eighteenth Century

This charming book examines European dress as it evolved in eighteenth-century France, the country which (with occasional challenges from Britain) had already established itself as the arbiter of fashionable taste in this most elegant of eras. Madeleine Delpierre looks at French dress first from an aesthetic point of view, describing in detail fashionable and everyday clothes for men, women, and children -- from the basic cut and style to the accessories worn and carried to the materials used. Delpierre then examines the social and economic factors affecting fashion, compares styles of clothing in the major European countries, and assesses the cultural impact of clothes as they crossed territorial borders. The book concludes with a lively discussion of how fashion was treated in the literature of the day.