Describes the regional costumes of Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, and Mediterranean ports and islands, and the influence of climate, geography, and historical events on them.

Describes the national and regional costumes of ten European countries.

Examines the characteristics of representative costumes from the various countries and regions of Eastern Europe and how they are influenced by climate, geography, and historical events.

PEPIN® 3: EUROPEAN FOLK contains examples of the design of everyday textiles and costumes used throughout Europe, with a focus on the countries and regions of Central Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Transylvania, Moravia, Bohemia, etc.). Typical design elements include bold checks and stripes, colourful flowers and all sorts of figurative elements associated with rural life and the passage of the seasons. Also included in this book are examples of crochet, lace and embroidery. CD with Designs included.

In the past, girls from rural southeastern Europe spent their childhoods weaving, sewing, and embroidering festive dress so that upon reaching puberty they could join the Sunday afternoon village dances garbed in resplendent attire. These extremely colorful and intensely worked garments were often adorned with embroidery, lace, metallic threads, coins, sequins, beads, and, perhaps most importantly, fringe, a symbolic marker of fertility. Over time new forms of dress were added so that by 1900, a southeastern European village woman's apparel consisted of millennia of layered history. Even today this dress continues to be worn on festive occasions and by older people in rural areas. Lavishly illustrated, Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe features fifty stunning nineteenth- through twentieth-century ensembles from Macedonia, Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, and neighboring countries, plus one hundred individual items including aprons, vests, jackets, and robes. Elizabeth Wayland Barber traces this twenty-thousand-year tradition of dress in fascinating detail.