Rare haute couture books, fashion magazines, designers' drawings, history of clothing fashion

First edition.

Copy in loose leaves as issued, complete with its illustrated wrappers, its engraved title-page adorned with a colour vignette, its black-and-white vignette at the head of the text, and its twelve colour plates by Barbier. Spine very slightly sunned.

A superb copy of this almanac illustrated with 12 pochoir plates by George Barbier, who also designed the wrappers, depicting an Art Deco Venus emerging on a shell borne by two tritons highlighted in silver.

Original watercolour for plate No. 9 of the Le Bon Genre series published by La Mésangère (issued in 1817, 1822 and 1827). Mounted on a mat. Manuscript date and signatures in ink: "30 septembre 1806", "Théodore Lecoeur le jeune".

An outstanding watercolour signed and dated by the illustrator Théodore Lecoeur le jeune, which appeared anonymously in Le Bon Genre, the celebrated series of prints depicting Parisian fashions and manners under the Empire. The collection presents elegant female figures rendered in a semi-caricatural and humorous style, and remains among the finest achievements of French social satire in the early...

Original watercolour for plate No. 20 of the series Le Bon Genre published by La Mésangère (issued in 1817, 1822, and 1827). A tiny loss at the upper right corner, not affecting the illustration; a marginal tear restored on the verso with a paper addition, without loss. Title, date, and signatures in manuscript ink: "Une Soirée de Coblentz", "Paris, juin 1806", "Dessiné par Garbizza".

An exceptional work, signed and dated by the illustrator Angelo Garbizza (1777-1813), anonymously printed in Le Bon Genre, the celebrated collection of engravings depicting the manners and fashions of Paris during the Napoleonic era and the...

First French edition.

Profusely illustrated.

Text by Edgar Morin, Georges Lois, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Eric Troncy, Jérôme Sans.

Valuable signed autograph inscription from Jean-Paul Goude to Sonia (Rykiel) in capital letters: "POUR SONIA QUE J'AIME."

Rare and important first edition.

Our copy is sold unbound. A minor worm-trail on all leafs' heads, not affecting text. 

The work describes the dress, headdress, arsenal and equipment of soldiers and officers of the French army; it also addresses the cavalry, dragoons, and hussars.

The chapter devoted to the distinctive uniform of each regiment includes a list of these regiments, some of which took part in the American Revolutionary War. 

First edition of this handsome trade catalogue illustrated with 33 plates (printed recto and verso), incorporating several mounted colour fabric samples (silks, woollens, etc.), each facing a pochoir-coloured vignette depicting a young woman dressed in a garment fashioned from the textiles presented; the designs bear evocative names: Caprice, Oasis, Pluie de rose, Polyanna, Divine chanson, Pêcheuse, Vamp, Mickey, Poupée blonde, Intrépide, Espiègle, Montparnasse, Sibéria, Câline, Incognito, Magicienne, etc.

Bound in full grey flexible boards, smooth spine lettered in gilt on the upper cover, the copy complete with its original textile cord.

A few leaves with staining or foxing...

New edition illustrated with 16 folding copper-engraved plates.

Only two copies recorded in the CCF (Collège de France, Caen). As such, the volume is not cited by Quérard nor by Cioranescu.

Contemporary temporary blue paper boards, smooth spine, unlettered. Minor rubbing to the spine-ends.

Some foxing.

As such, the volume is not cited by Quérard nor by Cioranescu. It nevertheless constitutes the exceedingly rare atlas to the second edition of the Histoire de Russie tirée des chroniques originales, published in the same year, 1800, in 8 volumes of text.

The first edition had appeared in 1782 in five duodecimo volumes and, compiled from the...

First edition of this remarkable collection illustrated with five finely engraved outline plates by Adrien-Louis-Marie Cavelier and Pierron after designs by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (cf. Collection Émile Brouwet, II, 168).

Large quarto (27.8 × 40.5 cm). Two pages of text and five engraved plates.

Mid-nineteenth-century half black goatskin, smooth spine decorated in gilt and...

Second edition (cf. Quérard I, 529: records “Broussonnet”. Colas 457.)

Reflections on fashion and elegant dress in antiquity; the first edition, published in 1799, appeared under the name of one of the author’s pupils. 

Rare copy preserved in the original wrappers.

Second edition (cf. Quérard IX, 429.).

Our copy remains in the original stitching, in temporary wrappers showing numerous losses and a cracked backstrip; the margins of some leaves are browned and bear small chips.

The work deals exclusively with the canonical prohibition on clergy wearing wigs; one section is devoted to liturgical and extra-liturgical headgear: birettas, mitres, almuces, hoods, camails, amices, caps, and skullcaps.

Abbot Jean-Baptiste Thiers (1636–1703) was among the most original and learned theologians of the seventeenth century; throughout his life he opposed superstition and the misuse of religious practices.

First illustrated edition, featuring at the end of the volume 12 charming hand-coloured copper engravings depicting fashionable hairstyles and costumes (10), as well as furniture (2).

Contemporary binding in half midnight-blue calf, smooth spine decorated with lozenge tools and gilt fillets, gilt tail ornament, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers, marbled edges.

The work is also illustrated with a portrait of Bonaparte as a frontispiece and one plate hors-texte.

Foxing, black ink stains to page 81.

This work, intended for an American readership, as stated in the Preface ("L'espèce de journal dont nous offrons ici le premier essai, ne contiendra que rarement...

First edition abundantly illustrated with photographs.
Publisher's full black cloth binding, smooth spine, black paper endpapers and pastedowns, black edges, complete with dust jacket and soft cardboard slipcase.
Signed and inscribed by Peter Marino to a couple of friends accompanied by two drawn hearts on an endpaper: "For Christine & Olivier. Love. Peter"

Posthumous first edition of Mallarmé's chronicles for the journal La Dernière mode. Preface by S. A. Rhodes.

3/4 morocco binding, spine with five raised bands, gilt title, decorative paper covers, marbled endpapcers and paste­downs. Bound as issued, top edge gilt, binding signed by Maylander. Spine and top of the front cover faded, and small trace of adhesive to one of the flyleaves.

A rare copy of the only first edition of Mallarmé published in the U.S. - bring­ing together chronicles from his great magazine of wit and opinion, The Latest Fashion, every page of which he wrote himself under various pseudonyms of both genders. Mallarmé wrote about the latest women's...

First edition of this complete suite of 18 numbered intaglio plates enhanced in colour, on 'J. Honig & Zoonen' laid paper, depicting 72 merchants accompanied by captions beneath each figure.
First printing, subsequent editions will feature individually numbered figures surrounded by a border.

Bound in half sienna morocco with corners, smooth spine, title stamped in gilt throughout, tiger patterned paper boards, combed paper endpapers and flyleaves, first cover retained, gilt head.
 
Extremely rare and the earliest known suite of prints depicting itinerant merchants and pedlars in Spain. Each figure is...

Set of 52 original plates, etched and enhanced with watercolours at the time, numbered 1 to 52, mounted in pairs under mats.
 
Leaves in red half calf slipcase (early 20th century), red shagreen boards.
The plates vary in size (10.8 x 17.6 cm to 28.1 x 18.8 cm) and paper stock, as was often the case with La Mésangère's publications. Unbound engraved title on a bifolium, printed separately, absent from most copies. It is replaced here by its identical reprint by Gosselin (1893-1903), on antique watermarked paper and bears the publisher's 'G' mark, characteristic of this reprint a century later. All the plates, however, are in their first edition, without the G...

20 full-page lithographs in black by Gustave Doré, in second state.
Red half oblong Bradel-style cloth binding, smooth spine, black morocco title label, marbled paper boards, beige paper endpapers and flyleaves, corners slightly dulled.