This book was excellent. As a historian, I can say it was more than informative and with the illustrations, even better. The book gives an excellent sense of the past and how the change-over-time affected not only people, their style of dress, but also the historical timeline. Would recommend for anyone interested in fashion as well as history.

One of my favorite parts of finding old photographs is inspecting the clothing and home decor/designs to see if they provide any clues as to how the person lived. This book is a well-researched and thorough resource for aiding in those interpretations. I learned quite a bit from it that I hope to put to good use.

I want to thank Netgalley and the author for gifting me the ebook. I absolutely love anything about fashion and I love historical fashion. Highly recommend!

If you have an interest in textiles, cloth, fashion, history, stories and/or families, then this is the book for you! It is insightful, accessible and a very, very interesting read with lots of food for thought.

I liked it, it was an interesting read. If you’re into historical fashions then this is a good book to pick up. Really gave you a sense of the time.

A fantastic read a well written look at fashion family history.The book is full of interesting information drawings and photographs.Iwas completely engaged going back in time out of my world into this interesting eye opening look at this time in history.#netgalley #penn&sword

An excellent book, "Fashion and Family History" is well written and very well researched, and includes a wide range of illustrations and photographs to support its text. The is a book that covers not only what the wealthy elite wore, but also the everyday English person, the poor, those living in both country and city. Fashions are charted over time from 1800 to 1950, including some reasons for the changes and how those changes effected lives. It also goes into more detail than I've seen before for men's and children's clothes, instead of focusing solely on women's fashions. From day wear to evening wear, sports to work, this book covers it all. Excellent for those hoping to research how to date time periods through images and also writers looking for descriptions of clothes in these time frames across Britain.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

A British-centered book on fashion and how it impacted family history either through the wearing or creating of these fashions. Shrimpton focuses on fashion throughout British history and how each class of citizens wore or made the fashions during their respective time frames. The author focuses more on the production of fashion and how it went from individuals creating items, weather wealthy or poor to the emergence of industry and it's impacts on how fashion is created and the loss of individual industry. I read this as an e-book on a Kindle paperwhite, which was not the best format for this book as the color plates mentioned by the author didn't come through.

"Fashion and Family History" describes British fashions from 1800 to 1950. The author first described women's dress, men's dress, and children's dress (including babies) and how it changed throughout these years. She then went into more detail about the differences between city fashions and what rural people would wear, what was worn for business, uniforms for servants, department store employees, etc., what made up "Sunday best" clothing, what was worn for travel and holidays, sports (horseback riding, tennis, cycling, motoring, golf, walking), for brides at weddings, mourning attire, and evening dress. She also talked about activities that involved fashion and clothing, like sewing, being a seamstress or laundress, the rise of patterns and sewing machines, knitting, etc. She also described the care of clothes of different materials: how it was washed, ironed, starched, and stored.

There were some photographs and fashion plates showing the different fashions, but there were not very many of these. There were more for the 1900s than the 1800s, and even there, the photos did not show every change of fashion. Overall, the descriptions were clear enough that I could identify the clothes in the photographs. Since the aim of the book is helping people date old photos and paintings by the fashion, it should be helpful in that regard. I got this book because I was interested in seeing what the different fashions looked like, so I was disappointed that there weren't more fashion illustrations and photographs included.

“Fashion and Family History” gives a look at dress history and the evolution of fashion in England from the late 1700s to the 20th century. Despite the title, this book is about 95% dress history and 5% family history. Unless you family was directly involved in the dressmaking or laundressing industry, this book gives very little genealogically-relevant information. Even if your family *was* involved in those professions, other published works or sources are suggested for gathering information on your ancestors.

Things I liked about the book:
-The structure of the chapters was nice. It made for great reference chapters if you only wanted to focus on one topic.
-The information was fascinating. Learning about how sports or the war or women entering the workforce changed clothes and fashion was fun to read about.
-The photos included were nice and came from a variety of time periods.

Things I didn’t like as much:
-The chapter structure sometimes gave way to repetitive portions when read as a book instead of as a reference material.
-I wished some of the fashion terms were depicted in labeled photographs. I didn’t understand some of the terms used for clothing (perhaps because I’m an American, or perhaps because fashion is not a strong suit of mine)
-For a book half titled about family history, I wished there was more of a focus on genealogy and how the information discussed could relate to one‘s own family.

All-in-all, great reference book for a history of dress and fashion changes (4 stars), but not recommended for most genealogists (2 stars).

Great reference book for fashions in bygone times. A great way to help identify clothing in pictures and in your genealogy.

I very much enjoyed this glimpse into a part of everyones history, the book was informative and interesting!

Fashion and Family History by Jayne Shrimpton is a comprehensive book that covers all aspects of dress from 1800-1950. The first chapter is a tour de force. I think it’s probably the best account I have read of the changes in costume over the busy period of 1800 – 1950. In 36 pages, Shrimpton gives us detail of women’s, men’s and children’s fashions; and the strict chronological history in each section ensures we understand how one form morphed into another as waistlines moved and sleeves loosened or tightened. When I finished the chapter, I had to go back and read it again because I couldn’t believe that she’d packed in so much so succinctly. Brilliant!

Shrimpton then shows us how the perception of what was fashionable in any place at any time was influenced by contemporary communications. Jane Austen, for example, wrote letters during a visit to London which would have given her correspondent an idea of what was worn there in 1814. Pedlars and travelling salesmen would have spread word of changes, as would people visiting cities and returning home to smaller towns. Technology lowered the cost of goods, railways moved them faster and further. Younger generations are always more receptive to change than their elders and became more mobile, thanks to the proliferation of trains, buses and cars over that period.

There are chapters on work wear, including uniform or livery. Shrimpton covers special occasions such as holidays, weddings and mourning as well as playing sports. Dressing up, e.g. evening wear, and dressing down – normal daily wear – are covered. There’s a chapter on making and buying clothes. I remember our old Singer machine with a foot treadle, before my sister bought an electronic machine when she started work in the 1960s. The chapter also covers sourcing materials, talking about the role of pedlars and jobbing weavers, who travelled around, setting up their looms in a client’s parlour or barn. Caring for Clothes gives us an idea of how hard women worked on washdays and the steps taken to put off full cleaning as long as possible – that’s why we had clothes brushes on hallstands. I recall dining at the Savoy (only once!) and an attendant brushing my shoulders, arms and back. That was obviously a legacy of those times. I think that was possibly the chapter where I learned the most: the mechanics of wash-day for households of different status and with a variety of materials to clean; how cloths were then dried; and how they were stored. I was pleased that the author also addressed the clothing industry, explaining how grim it could be for the workers.

Did you know that British munitions factory workers received a special allowance for face creams in 1942? However, it didn’t stop skin turning yellow when exposed on a daily basis to large quantities of TNT. Modern nail varnish or lacquer was developed in 1916, originally inspired by automobile paint.

This is a very personal book, rather than a dry academic one, despite the huge knowledge that is distilled in it. Jayne Shrimpton mentions fox stoles that belonged to her grandmother and godmother. The first picture in the book is captioned “My auntie…”. There is one lovely touch that I would like to see more widely adopted: when another work is cited, rather than referring to, say, “Taylor” with a footnote such as “Taylor, L: Mourning Dress (Routledge 2010)”, the text will have “Lou Taylor examines the topic in detail in […] Mourning Dress.” This gives a great sense of people learning from each other – perhaps even being friends – rather than isolated academics reading journals and each other’s books in isolation. The full details of Lou Taylor’s book are still listed in the bibliography, it’s just the friendlier way it’s referred to in the text.

This is a great book and one that I shall re-read for pleasure as well as keeping for reference. Thank you, Pen and Sword, for letting me have a free copy to review.

#FashionandFamilyHistory #NetGalley

My thanks to Netgalley And Pen And Sword for a copy of “ Fashion And Family History “ fo an honest review.
Another excellent publication from Pen And Sword and Jayne Shrimpton. I love this series of books and they are a constant source of information when I am researching my family history. I usually would buy a book edition but ii was very impressed how well this appeared on my Kindle .
This was well written and informative and I cannot recommend it highly enough

I found this to be a fascinating read, and the pictures and illustrations were fantastic. As a Historical Romance author, I have a feeling I am going to be referring back to this book again and again as it is a remarkable resource for the various time periods between 1800 and 1950. I love how it is categorized, and indexed! You can quickly look up very detailed descriptions of clothes worn by the aristocracy in one section, and workman and laborers in another. I found the section on sportswear especially fascinating. Very well written and easy to follow. I think anyone who has any interest at all in history, or fashion would love this book.

Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant. Though keeping up with modern fashion trends holds no attraction for me, the history of fashion and how it related to life in my favourite eras encompassing 1800 to 1950 is utterly absorbing. Clothing told stories. Still does.

Clothing, of course, is worn for several reasons. This book details information on work wear to bathing costumes to bridal wear to formal evening wear to hairstyles and scores more applications/purposes/events. Upholding status was crucial in this time period, especially 1800-early 1900s and clothing was one of the most prominent ways of displaying it, though often impractical. Gender clothing, including the beginnings of blue and pink, are discussed. There is also information on what men and women wore for leisure and sport including golf, swimming, horseback riding and golf. There are even old clothing advertisements in this book.

Clothing itself and accessories such as fabrics, handkerchiefs, hats, ribbons, lace, boots, stockings, gloves, neckties, etc. are described in wonderful detail. You will learn about portrait photography, what was worn on farms and in cities, how feet were kept warm as well as mourning etiquette. My least liked occupation related to clothing would have been hand washing...talk about involved and tedious.

One of my favourite aspects is the photographs, especially the personal touch of the author's relatives! I am so fortunate to have a very old photo album filled with portraits of my ancestors in my family's possession. It is interesting to note the range of facial expressions from severe and stern in the 1860s to the relaxed grins of the 1950s.

History readers, this is for you whether you are intrigued by fashion or not. It cannot be missed.

My sincere thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC of this delightful book in exchange for an honest review. Much appreciated.