Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe – A History in Layers

Description

Book Title: Resplendent Dress from Southeastern Europe – A History in Layers
Author: Elizabeth Wayland Barber et al.
Language(s): English
Published: California – 2013
Format & Size: Hardcover with Dust Jacket – 9″ x 12″
Pages: 276
Book Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
Description: 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 (Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina), plus one hundred individual items including aprons, vests, jackets, and robes. The lead essay by world-renowned textile scholar Elizabeth Wayland Barber traces this twenty-thousand-year tradition of dress in fascinating detail. Chapters contributed by Charlotte Jirousek, Joyce Corbett, Elsie Ivancich Dunin, and Barbara Belle Sloan provide insight into historical variations, commonalities, and influences within this complex region. An important work in recent museum scholarship.