Fashion Sourcebooks: The 1980s

by John Peacock

Fashion Sourcebooks is a series of beautifully illustrated paperbacks that surveys the development of women's and men's clothing from 1900 onward, with a volume devoted to each decade. Fashion in the 1980s tended toward the functional and the formal. The typical "power dressed" woman of the period wore her shoulders wide, her skirts short, and her heels high, while sometimes colorful and relaxed men's fashions of the 1970s gave way to more conventional dressing. The year-by-year format of this book allows these developments to be shown in fascinating detail. Day and evening wear, sportswear, and accessories are included, and complete descriptions of each garment accompany the drawings. The reference section charts the evolution of fashion, and provides biographies of outstanding 1980s designers and a bibliography. 300 doutone illustrations

Genres: Fashion, History, Nonfiction

64 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1998

Reviews

[Ubalstecha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Essentially a collection of sketches copied from and inspired by the "iconic" designs of the 1980s. Really meant for fashion students who are looking for inspiration or research for class projects. I, a casual fashionista, if ever there were one, would have liked more explanation of why each outfit was chosen and how it was influenced by what came before it. This would have helped me understand the fashion trends that I was seeing develop over the decade.

[Patrick Neylan · Rating 2 out of 5]

By no means comprehensive, this is largely a collection of uncoloured designs, year by year through the decade, for use by fashion students. The subjects are strictly upper middle-class, aged around 30 and 80% female. There is a cursory two-page introduction, but it's meant to be a blueprint for those making their own clothes. Useful for them; little use or interest for anyone else.