More than 100 selections of day and evening wear from full-color French catalogs produced for the international market document changes in fashion from the stock market crash to the dawn of WWII.

From rare issues of the Fashion Service Review: 476 sharply detailed, easy-to-reproduce spots of authentic period apparel for men, women and children. Suits, dresses, coats, hats, shoes, neckties, swimwear, tuxedos and evening gowns, fur stoles, sweaters, pajamas, gloves, handbags, jewelry, undergarments, and much more.

From the turbulence of the 1930s emerged the Golden Age of Glamour. Framed by two world-changing events – the economic crash of 1929 and the outbreak of the Second World War – the 1930s saw new looks emerge and thrive, despite economic and social uncertainty. This was the decade of the bias cut, the statement shoulder, the puff sleeve, the tea dress, the fur shrug and the floor-length evening gown. It was also the era that saw Hollywood challenge Paris's fashion crown and its stars become fashion icons, signalling a new grown-up direction in womenswear design. Packed with over 500 original photographs, illustrations and sketches from the decade, this is an essential guide for any fashion historian, student or vintage enthusiast. These classic images have been selected from popular fashion publications of the day, mail-order catalogues and Hollywood studio press shots, including material from Chic Parisien, Harper's Bazaar, Sears, La Femme Chic and film studios Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount. Authored and edited by renowned design historian, Charlotte Fiell, this volume also contains an authoritative introduction by fashion historian, Emmanuelle Dirix, as well as the biographies of the key designers and fashion houses of the period.

From the elegant bias-cut gown to the light and liberating day dress, this book looks at and celebrates the historic silhouettes, fabric cuts and contextual history of 1930s clothing. Equipped with instructions, patterns and enchanting photos, it explores the history of 1930s fashion, and explains how to make a range of versatile thirties inspired garments. It takes ten examples of 1930s garments, ranging from a lingerie set to a heavy coat, to create a capsule collection. The patterns are taken from original 1930s garments, with each piece being carefully measured and the patterns scaled down accordingly. Step-by-step instructions for making each garment are complemented by close up photographs of historic details and decoration. A beautiful and practical book, it will inspire designers, dressmakers and lovers of vintage fashion who want to express themselves through timeless and elegant style. Explores the history and context of 1930s clothing styles, cuts and designers, to give a full understanding of how fabric was manipulated to create figure-hugging silhouettes. Superbly illustrated with 443 colour images and 29 patterns taken from original 1930s garments.

Illustrations depicting 500 years of French fashion, reproduced from a rare 19th-century publication, progress chronologically from flamboyant headgear and voluminous robes of 15th-century royalty to high-waisted Empire styles of the Napoleonic era.

Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations fighting for the POUM militia of the Republican army during the Spanish Civil War. The war was one of the defining events of his political outlook and a significant part of what led him to write in 1946, "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for Democratic Socialism, as I understand it." The first edition was published in the United Kingdom in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952, when it appeared with an influential preface by Lionel Trilling. The only translation published in Orwell's lifetime was into Italian, in December 1948. A French translation by Yvonne Davet-with whom Orwell corresponded, commenting on her translation and providing explanatory notes-in 1938-39, was not published until five years after Orwell's death. Book Summary: Orwell served as a private, a corporal (cabo) and-when the informal command structure of the militia gave way to a conventional hierarchy in May 1937-as a lieutenant, on a provisional basis, in Catalonia and Aragon from December 1936 until June 1937. In June 1937, the leftist political party with whose militia he served (the POUM, the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification, an anti-Stalinist communist party) was declared an illegal organisation, and Orwell was consequently forced to flee. Having arrived in Barcelona on 26 December 1936, Orwell told John McNair, the Independent Labour Party's (ILP) representative there, that he had "come to Spain to join the militia to fight against Fascism." He also told McNair that "he would like to write about the situation and endeavour to stir working class opinion in Britain and France." McNair took him to the POUM barracks, where Orwell immediately enlisted. "Orwell did not know that two months before he arrived in Spain, the [Soviet law enforcement agency] NKVD's resident in Spain, Aleksandr Orlov, had assured NKVD Headquarters, 'the Trotskyist organisation POUM can easily be liquidated'-by those, the Communists, whom Orwell took to be allies in the fight against Franco."

The complete Wasmuth drawings, 1910. Wright's early experiments in organic design: 100 plates of buildings from Oak Park period from first edition. Includes Wright's iconoclastic introduction.