Get Dressed! A Historical Guessing Game for Fashion Lovers

Here is the perfect, innovative book for those who enjoy history and are interested in fashion through the ages. It takes four pages for each period, looking at four different sets of people and how they dress. Overleaf explains how two of the clothing items explained were fact and one was incorrect. Readers can test themselves easily on how much they know about fashion and learn lots of interesting facts along the way.

The ten eras chosen are worldwide and very varied: Ancient Greek Olympics, Early Iron Age, Tang Dynasty, Ottoman Empire, Inca State, Elizabethan Era, Edo Era, French Revolution, Roaring Twenties and Independent Ghana. I enjoyed learning about Monmouth Caps (p.26) which were compulsory headgear for boys and men over the age of six to be worn on Sundays and holidays in the Elizabethan Age. This was a law and failure to comply resulted in a fine. In the same section I discovered that Queen Elizabeth I is understood to be the first person to wear a wristwatch in 1571 (p.27).

At the end of this well-produced hardback there are a couple of useful pages concerning ‘What are we going to wear in the future?’ The author considers sustainability and fashion technology when looking at this question. The final section entitled ‘Discovering fashion history around the world’ shows displays of items in textile museums both near and far away.

Young children would enjoy reading this book in pairs or with an adult to share the guessing game and learn about the historical facts together. Congratulations to fashion expert Katy Canoles and talented illustrator Erin Vanessa. This publication would be a great asset in a classroom, library or home, and will give hours of enjoyment to youngsters. It may just be the trigger to start them off in the world of fashion or history!