Augustin Challamel’s The History of Fashion in France charts the evolution of French dress and adornment from the early Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, with France cast as the long-reigning arbiter of European taste. Translated from the French, it follows costume through court, revolution, and empire, treating fashion as a mirror of national history.
Challamel attends to fabrics, accessories, hairstyles, and the social codes that governed who could wear what. The narrative is dense with the names of styles, designers, and the monarchs and mistresses who set them. A classic survey for anyone tracing the origins of haute couture, this English edition is available here as a free EPUB download.