Avalon Fotheringham

The illustrations really make this book. Such a wide selection of textiles, many with details and the backs! It's really overwhelming. With examples from early exports preserved in Egypt to 20th century designs, you can see the development as different export markets were aimed at. The author is curator at the V&A, so has access to their amazing archives. The stars are the fabrics, but these are supplemented by various artworks depicting clothing to give a deeper historical background.

The texts aren't any less interesting. They give a large amount of background information from basic materials to techniques to historical information.

Note: I first borrowed the German translation from the library, but within a few pages had ordered the original.… (plus d'informations)