"A Visual History of Costume" is a series of easy-to-use reference guides on the history of dress. Each book covers one century. The central part of each book is a series of illustrations, in black and white and colour arranged chronologically, taken from the time of the dress itself. These include oil paintings, photographs, engravings, woodcuts and line drawings from a wide range of sources. By the use of such material the reader is given an idea of what was worn and how, without the distortions and loss of detail which modern line drawings can entail. Each illustration is captioned under the labels of head, body and accessories. The clothes are described, explained and intepreted. The reader may need to know whether a certain style was fashionable or unfashionable at a certain time, usual or unusual. The book is aimed at the student, designer and collector. Vanda Foster was formerly the Senior Assistant Keeper of Costume and Textiles in the Museum of London. She is also the author of "Bags and Purses".