Elizabeth L. Block
Art and cultural historian, author, and speaker
Highlighting women’s lives beyond the frame

Praise for Dressing Up

“Revising the traditional view of fashion history as a parade of (mostly male) genius designers, Block highlights the stylish customers, along with enterprising female dressmakers and businesswomen, whose tastes shaped the look of the Gilded Age.”

—Library Journal

“Dressing Up is widely accessible, clearly written, engaging, and thoroughly researched. . . . The book’s illustrations render the experience of reading it still more rewarding. Combined with the careful and colorful descriptions of the individual dresses, the images bring the dresses to life.”

—Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide

“Block rightly moves away from focusing on couture designers as omnipotent geniuses to focus instead on the social life of garments themselves.”

—Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era

“Block’s text adds a valuable perspective, reinforcing the discussion of transnational fashion networks and placing Parisian design within a global consumption context.”

—Business History

“Block’s material culture approach of ‘following the dresses’ effectively opens a new perspective on the relationship between the French couturiers, their clients, and the world in which the garments expressed the social status and aspirations of their wearers.”

—Women’s History Review

This book provides important context that will allow critics not only to visualize—thanks to the full-page color as well as black and white images—but also to understand the structures at work in the fashion industry in the nineteenth century. . . . Readers interested in the overlap of the French and American fashion industry will appreciate the in-depth interdisciplinary research communicated through her meticulously structured chapters. In her book, Block helps the reader—from fashion and art historians, to critics studying transatlantic relations in the nineteenth century—understand the origins of this power that has come to stereotypically define France’s intrigue internationally.

—Nineteenth-Century French Studies

“Perfect fireside reading, the excellent Dressing Up by Elizabeth L. Block looks at the American women who influenced French fashion. Lovely illustrations ... fascinating writing, the perfect combination. It is a total treat!”

—Kate Strasdin, Senior Lecturer, Falmouth University

“Block takes the study of nineteenth-century French fashion and its consumers to a new level with her keen synthesis of an impressive group of sources.”

—Pamela A. Parmal, Chair and Curator of Textile and Fashion Arts Emerita, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

“A long-overdue study of maison Félix, nuanced critique of the relationship between the Parisian haute couture and coiffure industries, new reading of the assertive role of U.S. clients and the architectural spaces they occupied, and detailed interpretation of fashion at the 1900 Paris Exposition are among many reasons this meticulously researched and beautifully written book makes a major contribution to late nineteenth-century fashion studies.”

—Amy de la Haye, Professor of Dress History & Curatorship, London College of Fashion