Jan Glier Reeder, High Style. Masterworks from the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010). 256pp., 200 + illus. Hbk. £35. ISBN 978-0-300-15522-8

This book, together with an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, honours the transfer from the Brooklyn Museum to the Metropolitan of the former museum’s 24,000 garments and accessories. As such, it can only be a taster, though that is no bad thing because it highlights some of the treasures of a collection which most know about but fewer have seen.

The Brooklyn Museum is situated in one of the five boroughs of New York and suffers from being seen as a local museum, whereas the Metropolitan has always had a national and international presence. Brooklyn amassed its wonderful collection through donations and purchases over nearly a hundred years, and had a significant link with the art and design worlds by allowing access to its collections for study and inspiration. This led to the setting up of the Edward C Blum Design Lab which, together with many of the items designated as study materials, moved in the 1960s to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to form its Costume Institute. It is fitting therefore that, following a reassessment of their collections and remit, the remainder of Brooklyn’s costume collections should move to join the earlier transferred pieces. The items selected for the book are taken from a re-cataloguing programme which took place over about four years and which saw all the items assessed, researched and photographed.

The book is divided into sections, beginning with Historical Fashions 1760-1890s, which contains a rare dress of 1797-9 of warp-printed silk, whilst the wackiest has to be the beach ensemble of about 1895-1900. The selection from The House of Worth 1860s-1930s shows items most of which will be familiar from Elizabeth Ann Coleman’s book on the designer and his contemporaries. Other designers such as Callot Soeurs, Paquin and Poiret are featured in the next section, French Couture 1880s-1980s. Boué Soeurs’ ‘Robe de Style’ court presentation dress must have created a stir when worn. Later designers include Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga and Yves St Laurent. Elsa Schiaparelli is represented by 250 items, half from one donor, and there are hats, shoes, knitwear, jewellery and gloves, with a musical box in a belt fastening. The American Women Designers 1920s-1970s section includes some who are well known beyond the USA such as Elizabeth Hawes, Bonnie Cashin and Claire McCardell, but others less well known include the milliner Sally Victor. American Men Designers from the 1930s-1980s are also represented, including Mainbocher, Adrian, Norell and Galanos, with a good selection of Charles James pieces from 1930s-1950s. Brooklyn received the James archive when he died so this is a particular strength of the collection.

The section entitled Rarities 1600s-1960s includes a Venetian lace collar, a marvellous French shawl of about 1855 with chinoiserie designs, a dress of Queen Victoria and a shirt of Czar Nicholas II, as well as some wonderful pieces from a collection of Russian folk and festive dress, highlighting the fact that the museum collected pieces other than European fashionable dress. There are a few cinema outfits, and some of the small mannequins dressed by the French couture houses that were to have been part of the ‘Gratitude’ train sent by France to the United States in 1949. There is also a wedding dress of lace dated 1870, but this is surely about 1910 judging from the type of lace and the style. The Shoes 1600s-1970s section has a very rare pair of women’s boots from the late eighteenth century, as well as shoes by Yantorny, Ferragamo and a selection of pullovers by Steven Arpad, dated 1939. The book includes additional Notes and a Select Bibliography. The garments are mounted on the white Kyoto mannequins, but they are fortunately shown without the heads, the least satisfactory part of these models. Together with the beautiful photography this is a luscious book, and in a short review it is only possible to mention some that caught the reviewer’s eye. One last comment, when might we expect another selection of the male dress?

NAOMI E. A. TARRANT