When I was in college, my roommate and I were very broke.
This meant that anything we wanted to do in our free time needed to be either very very cheap or (preferably) free.
One of our favorite pastimes was visiting our local library. In the summer, it was a wonderful place to get out of the sweltering SC heat that our one ancient window A/C unit didn’t stand a chance against.
My favorite sections to pore over were Art and Fashion.
Art and Fashion books are generally very pricey, due to their size and that they contain mostly photographs, which are much more expensive to print than just text.
I learned a great deal about fashion and art history while buried in the stacks, and I think that’s made a huge difference in how I clothe myself now vs. before.
By learning more about fashion history, I was better able to create my own unique style, rather than just buy what was trendy right there and then.
Open culture is a beautiful thing.
Imagine how thrilled I was to discover that The Metropolitan Museum of Art has 1,556 publications available to download for free on their site…including an impressive collection of fashion publications.
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Here are just a few free fashion books from The Met’s collection that I can’t wait to peruse:
In Pursuit of Fashion presents outstanding works from the greatest private collection of twentieth-century fashion and explores the modern discipline of fashion collecting.
About Time: Fashion and Duration traces the evolution of fashion, from 1870 to the present, through a linear timeline of iconic garments, each paired with an alternate design that jumps forward or backward in time.
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty examines the full breadth of the designer's career, from the start of his fledgling label to the triumphs of his own world-renowned London house.
Currently out of print, this book explores one of the most revered designers of the twentieth century, Coco Chanel (1883–1971).
Published 50 years after Christian Dior's "New Look" of 1947, and accompanying an exhibition at The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this book presents a chronology of Dior's creations.
During the reigns of Louis XV (1723–74) and Louis XVI (1774–92) fashion and furniture merged ideals of beauty and pleasure. With their fragile surfaces and delicate proportions, tables, chairs, and other pieces of furniture enhanced the elite's indulgence in leisurely pursuits.
Beginning in the early 1930s, American designer sportswear came into its own, later becoming a major force in fashion that continued into the 1990s to influence the way women dress.
This is a survey of the history of haute couture, from the formation of the House of Worth in mid-19th-century Paris to the major designers of the present day. The book focuses on the highly skilled crafts that are essential to the production of haute couture.
