Amazon.com description: Product Description: This volume deals with an extraordinary and varied century for costumes and fashions. Miss Brooke's drawings present an extremely good idea of the way in which Jacobean clothing, replaced Elizabethan stiffness, gradually evolving into a formality of its own. Primary sources are used to show the relation of the garments and point us to direct pattern references. There are specific illustrations for hair, shoes and hats as well as the various layers of men's and women's clothing, each divided by decades within a century. The drawings are grouped in economic, social or cultural categories to assist in visualizing the relationships of clothing for historical or theatrical reference. General diagrams of certain garments are shown so a pattern could be developed for making the garment or for understanding how a particular piece of clothing was actually constructed. The style of drawings is related sympathetically to the primary sources; but the garments a clearly shown so the reader understands how convincingly wearable each garment could have been. This is a concise and lively source with enduring value for costume and fashion reference as well as an ideal place to find helpful suggestions, ideas, and general background for costume designs.