The Dictionary of Fashion History

2010

Central GT507 CY86. Kind permission, Bloomsbury Publishing

Oxford: Berg

Valerie Cumming’s revised, updated edition builds on the work of costume historians, Cecil Willett and Phyllis Cunnington, and the medievalist Charles Beard. The terminology of clothing and fashion over time is recorded along with basic terms used in dress-making and tailoring, and some fabric names. We learn that elephant cloth (1869) was made of twisted flax-cord and that ‘kicksies’ is another name for unmentionables, inexpressibles or bags – all 19th century euphemisms for men’s trousers.