Sewing and Collecting Vintage Fashions, by Eileen MacIntosh. Chilton Company, 1988

This book is aimed at the very beginner to vintage and historical fashion. It gives a (very) brief overview of Medieval and Tudor fashions, and then heads right into American Colonial, Regency, Victorian, and some Edwardian. These are definitely her eras; she’s also a writer of historical romances and apparently she sets them in these eras. There is info on where to find true vintage fashions, and a little bit about sewing, such as what things must be done by hand because they show and won’t be true to the era. She even gives what fabrics will be true to the various eras, something that is frequently overlooked- polyester satin Medieval gowns, anyone? There are some tiny patterns which you can scale up to human size to make your own reproductions, and a chapter on how to mend and alter vintage pieces to fit you. Other than those, which are to scale, the illustrations are hand doodled, with a few photos. There are a number of pages of resources, but many of them are no longer in existence. There is also a great bibliography- the books are dated but you can almost always find old books via the interlibrary loan system. So, good for a beginning costumer but not so much for anyone with experience. Three stars.