---
product_id: 5214926
title: "The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England Hardcover – February 26, 2008"
brand: "john styles"
price: "$236.60"
currency: USD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.us/products/5214926-the-dress-of-the-people-everyday-fashion-in-eighteenth-century
store_origin: US
region: United States of America
---

# The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England Hardcover – February 26, 2008

**Brand:** john styles
**Price:** $236.60
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

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- **What is this?** The Dress of the People: Everyday Fashion in Eighteenth-Century England Hardcover – February 26, 2008 by john styles
- **How much does it cost?** $236.60 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The Dress of the People-a magnificent study
  

*by J***D on Reviewed in the United States on December 21, 2009*

This book is currently  one of my favourite  books on the history of the era, because it tackles an  area that has been very neglected: the clothing of the poor, the working class and servants in the long 18th century.Jane Austen gives us some ideas of the puritanical attitude some held towards servants clothing in Mansfield Park : Mrs Norris and her sister, Mrs Price, share the opinion that servant girls ought not to show any extravagance in dress. Surviving costumes as worn by the poor etc in the long 18th century are , of course, very rare .They were worn, re worn and adapted till they fell apart into rags. That makes a study of them very difficult. John Styles, the Research Professor of History at the University of Hertfordshire, has tackled this problem head on and resolved it by referring to various sources of information.Unusual written primary sources are used by him in this book: criminal records, which  are invaluable as the theft of clothes and clothing material was one  of the most frequently prosecuted set of offences in the criminal courts during the long 18th century. Newspaper advertisements for fugitives inevitably contained descriptions of the clothes the fugitive was wearing when last seen. For visual and material sources, Professor Styles refers to the prints and paintings of the era, and for evidence of the type of materials worn by the poor he refers to the magnificent but sad collection of textile scraps preserved by the London Foundling Hospital.The hospital's admission or billet books which were meticulously kept form 1741 to 1760 contain the worlds largest collection of everyday  fabrics. Professor Styles uses them very carefully, describing the type of cottons and linen the preserved scraps represent and describes the type of clothes from which they came.It all makes for an absorbing and  facinating read.The book is published by Yale and it is sumptuously and carefuly produced, the illustrations are clearly  reproduced, an important point other publishers may have fudged.I thoroughly recommend it, not only for its history of plebeian clothing in our era,  but for its examination of that part of society which,is certainly referred to by Jane Austen but is not usually covered in social history books in any great detail.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Fashion Details
  

*by F***D on Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2011*

John Style's "The Dress of the People" stands out in the narrow focus of his volume:  the dress of everyday people in England. With numerous photographs of art of the times, fabrics, wallpapers, furniture, and accessories, the reader can see the points he presents.  He also moves among the classes, from the upper classes with their elegant frippery and penchant for marking their servants by their own livery to the tales of travelers to England. The huge pride of the English, that they wore shoes, not clogs, and deemed the Welsh as uncivilized for their bare feet, is but one of the political points Styles makes. His research is extensive, presented in four parts, each with sub-chapters. The bibliography is impressive.  This book has solved many questions for me as I fashion a historical novel of the 18th century.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Awesome Costum Resource
  

*by F***5 on Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2015*

If you are doing research into the dress of common English people in the 18th century, this is for you. As an American Colonial re-enactor, one is told that "people dressed that way", and everybody looks kind of the same. This book disproves that, at least for English people of America's colonial past. If you are dressing colonial, or researching life in colonial times, this book goes well beyond the clichés into what people really wore.

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*Last updated: 2026-02-22*