Ottoman Costumes Turkish Hardcover, January 1, 1986 Coffee Table Book

Ottoman Costume Book (Turkish) Hardcover, January 1, 1986.
 
by Fenerci Mehmed Fenerci MehmeT Album (Author)
 
From the 15th century on, Europeans attempted to become acquainted with the Turks, who were the representatives of a growing and ever more powerful unknown world. The structure, daily life, religion, and clothing of Ottoman society, which were so totally different from their own, were the object of an inexhaustible curiosity. Over the centuries, it was this curiosity which made it the goal of Europeans who came to Turkey to depict in words or in pictures the impressions which they acquired during the course of their visits. It was also in this way that the costume books which they had prepared by local artists to provide more accurate information were born. This work, which is one of these albums representing various types from among government officials and various sectors of the populace in the Ottoman Empire as well as their clothing whose date and place of production and whose artist (Fenerci Mehmed) are known, is being offered to the world of art and science for the first
 
The study of clothes and dressing has great potential for social and cultural history. Typically Ottoman urbanites situated their fellow men after a glance at the clothing worn by the latter. As to the women, such conclusions were more difficult to draw, as all females were to be modestly covered up and ideally almost invisible. Yet in practice, at least from the eighteenth century onwards, it was often possible, at least in Istanbul, to distinguish fashionable from soberly pious women. To be aware of people's modes of dressing thus was part of knowing one's way around in Ottoman society. --
 
Costume, Turkish Textiles
 
This is a beautiful coffee table or library book
 
1st Edition 1986.