As an academic, teacher, and former library clerk, I am a complete bibliophile. This is an annotated bibliography of various texts that I have come across and thought of interest.
General Medieval and Renaissance Textile Resources:
Crowfoot, Elizabeth, Frances Pritchard, and Kay Staniland. Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450. London: Boydell Press, 2001.
This is an amazing resource for historical construction techniques as well as fibers used in period. The book is based on archaeological finds in London and includes numerous examples of period clothing, fabrics, woven and braided textiles, and more. It examines the structure and fibers of the weaves of different fabrics (warp and weft fibers, weaving technique used, size of motif, etc.) as well as construction (seam treatments, bias vs. on grain cutting). It is an excellent resource for tablet weavers, fingerloop braiders, weavers of any medieval cloth, allowing period recreations of many crafts due to the detail provided. It also includes excellent information on period construction techniques for a variety of periods and types of clothing. I highly recommend this book.
Tortora, Phyllis, Keith Eubank. Survey of Historic Costume. 4th ed. New York: Fairchild Publications, Inc., 2005.
I am somewhat torn about this book. While several periods have been extensively researched, there are occasional comments regarding the early period descriptions which leave me slightly unsure of their veracity - such as stating that bliauts were often made in velvet (I have never heard of this and no citation was provided, but it is quite possible that I simply have not come across the research they found on this topic). They also make interesting use of terminology, such as calling all medieval underdresses chemises, but I believe that is in part due to a conscious effort to standardize terminology throughout the text. The book does do an excellent job of providing primary sources (texts from in period, paintings, statues), as well as explaining the period terms at times. The book is designed as a text book/research aid for costumers and students of fashion history as is written by a professor of historic costuming and a professor of history. The later periods appear to be more accurate, and I would consider it a useful source as a starting point for a project for the later middle ages up through the modern era, but to not take anything as gospel unless you can corroborate it with another source.
Tablet Weaving:
Collingwood, Peter. The Techniques of Tablet Weaving.
This book is incredibly useful to look at many different styles of tablet weaving and does include information on historic examples. However, because it covers many post-SCA period pieces it is more useful for general knowledge than for examples to recreate for A&S purposes. It does teach many different techniques that can be found in period and in an excellent general source - especially when paired with a time/location-specific text like Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450.
Medieval Fashion:
Margaret Scott. Medieval Dress and Fashion. London: The British Library, 2007.
Published by the British Library. this book does draw primarily on text and images from manuscripts held by the library and therefore has a slight preference towards English fashion. However, it provides an excellent historical context for the period it discusses and does incorporate many non-English sources when needed. Large color plates allow for careful analysis by the reader of the pieces described, both paintings/manuscripts, as well extant pieces of clothing and accessories. While the book does not discuss construction techniques, it is an excellent resource for images and descriptions of the visual details of medieval clothing.
Elizabethan Fashion:
Arnold, Janet. - Anything under her name.
Janet Arnold's work covers the later SCA period onwards but her research is considered by many a definitive guide to extant 16th century clothing, especially Patterns of Fashion vol.s 3 and 4 for their inclusion of men's fashion along with women's. The garments described are meticulously detailed regarding their construction and the patterns are provided, though these must be scaled to fit. If you are comfortable scaling a pattern to fit then these are perhaps the best use of money rather than purchasing commercial patterns (even the very good ones) considering the information and number of patterns you receive.
Italian Renaissance Fashion:
Birbari, Elizabeth. Dress In Italian Painting 1460-1500. London: John Murray Ltd., 1975.
As the title implies, this texts works primarily from examining Italian paintings from the period and as such is an excellent resource for color, cut, and embellishments seen in period. One of the best strengths of this book in my opinion is the organization, the chapters are broken down by garments (man's shirt, woman's chemise, veils, women's sleeves, etc.) and construction (tailoring of men's clothes, etc.). This makes it very easy to refer to and discover answers to specific questions one may have.
Frick, Carole Collier. Dressing Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
This is the most useful book for Italian Renaissance fashion that I have found so far. It contains extensive references to letters, bills, and wills from the period to provide excellent references for details on fabric, construction, and embellishment that are far more specific than most books that I have seen on the topic. It is easy to read, well organized, and an amazing source for period documentable details regarding fabric choice, use in period, and ideas of fashion of the day. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in Florentine fashion.
Herald, Jaqueline. Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500. London: Bell & Hyman, 1981.
One of the strengths of this book is the extensive use of color and black & white images throughout the text which makes it very easy to follow the discussion of changes in style seen in the 15th century. While the details are not as extensive as Frick in my opinion, it is a wonderful resource for images and general statements about the period.
Early Books on Fashion History:
Amusing finds in how fashion history was approached and treated in earlier periods.
Hill, Georgiana. A History of English Dress From the Saxon Period to the Present Day. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1893.
I have a slight obsession with Victorian history books and this one is just delightful. Chapter titles include "Squalid Dwellings and Sumptuous Dresses," "The Rugged Race" (speaking of the Plantagenets), and "The Puritan: His Hatred of Ornament." I would not count it as a valid source (at one point author claims the plastron on a surcoat represents a type of jacket she calls a "spencer," a term not used until the 1790s, and the reverse of the actual layering in period where the contrasting sleeves are under the surcoat, not part of a fur trimmed jacket worn over the surcoat) but compared to most 19th century works on history that I've seen it is surprisingly not bad. The descriptions of the clothing and hair styles are clearly based on the author looking at period paintings and statues, but the terminology she uses is often questionable and very modern (well, modern for the Victorians). Includes seven illustrations taken from paintings or prints.
The most interesting thing that I found was the use of the term "cote-hardie" (placed in italics in the text due to its French provenance) to describe women's fashionable gowns of the 14th century, claiming that it was originally a feminine garment and stolen by men, "The gentlemen have been poaching on the ladies' preserves, for the cote-hardie was originally a feminine garment" (63). While we now know this to be rather inaccurate (the term cotehardie to describe a woman's fitted dress is a 19th century concept, not the medieval term) it is fun to see how the Victorian attempts at fashion research shaped the way we still talk about garments, even a century later.