Book List
- Janet Arnold - absolutely everything she ever wrote is most highly recommended.
If you can get your hands on it, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd
is years worth of happy research fodder. The Patterns of Fashion series
examines grave clothes and shows actual pattern layouts for the pieces (one
of them pertains explicitly to the later 1500s).
- Jean Hunnisett - Period Costuming for Stage and Screen 1500 - 1800
This book contains patterning and instructions from the woman who did the
costumes for the BBC's Elizabeth R series. The instructions are, occasionally,
confusing, but it's a wealth of theatrical costuming knowledge.
- Robert Norris - Tudor Costume and Fashion To be absolutely honest,
Norris is not the place to turn for serious, well documented research. In
spite of this, my Norris is the costuming book that gets opened most often.
I love the line drawings, and the book is packed full of facts (some documentable,
some disputable).
- Ruth M. Green - The Wearing of Costume. This is a lovely little book
on wearing costumes properly that will tell you everything you need to know
*except* how to use the privy in long skirts on muddy days without getting
your nice white chemise sleeves all full of mud.