Book Review: The Story of Costume Told in Pictures, Belle Northrup

Quick note: I am going to be computer-less until the last week of January, so I am going to be blogging from my phone. Please excuse image quality, etc.

I bought this book from Amazon without any clue as to what it actually was. It wasn’t expensive, and I want to start collecting historical books related to style and color. The only original source by Northrup I’ve been able to get my hands on is a newspaper article, so I jumped at this one.

Unfortunately, it only has a short foreword, and the rest is just pictures of the way people dressed in different time periods. So it won’t bring any new details about Northrup’s method to life, and is more of a historical artifact.

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2 Comments on Book Review: The Story of Costume Told in Pictures, Belle Northrup

  1. Jayleen
    January 5, 2015 at 6:15 pm

    By collecting these historical books, are you trying to find something more accurate (and/or better) than Kibbe?

    As I’ve studied Kibbe’s book, I’ve had some trouble determining my type just from his descriptions. I have used the visual Kibbe test from the Yuku forum, but it’s not perfect either. I think more questions WITH visuals would really help.

    I’d love to see what else you find!

    Reply
    • stylesyntax
      January 5, 2015 at 9:32 pm

      No, I’m mainly interested in these for their historical value. Kibbe works very well for me, and if anything, I’d want to find something that develops Kibbe even further (work with lines, like Art of Dress or Guiding Lines), rather than going backwards into Kibbe’s sources.

      I think the questionnaire is so difficult because the more you learn about Kibbe’s system, the more your view of yourself changes. I originally saw my body as very yin, because measurement-wise, I’m curvy, but then I saw that my curves are comprised of straight lines and I’m much more yang than I originally thought. The best thing to do, I think, is to try on various types and see which recommendations work the best for you.

      Reply

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