PURSE BOOKS
Pain in The Purse by Wendy Dager
“Pain in The Purse: The Tax That Changed Hand-bag History” is a micro-history that explores the"forgotten" 20 percent US federal excise "luxury"tax placed on handbags in 1944. It was reduced to10 percent in 1954 and finally repealed in 1965, buttwenty years of FET had...

Book Review: The Pocket
Book Review The Pocket - A Hidden History of Women’s Lives by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux have written the first comprehensive examination of pockets, a costume accessory worn exclusively by women. This is a scholarly work...

Carry Me: 1950’s Lucite Purses: An American Fashion
Celebrate the fabulous fashions of the 1950s and 1960s with a book devoted to the glory of the Lucite handbag. “Carry Me” by Janice Berkson is packed with 160 pictures of these trendsetting acrylic plastic handbags. More than a coffee table book, “Carry Me” also traces manufacturers and designers, shows photos of original ads and more.

Review: Artistic Leather of the Arts and Crafts Era
Book by Daniel Lees Review by Jennifer Whitehair Available for purchase from: Amazon, On sale for $40.59 In the antique and collectibles market the accepted age at which an item moves from vintage to antique is 100 years old. So it comes as no surprise that leather...

Review: Bags: A selection from the Museum of Bags and Purses, Amsterdam
Is there something for everyone? Just when you think you’ve “seen it all” and are pretty savvy navigating the world of the antique purse, Sigrid Ivo appears with more eye candy and intriguing information for the serious antique purse collector.

Review: Perle für Perle
In the history of textiles and especially costume, there are few books that qualify as scholarly and groundbreaking. Sabina Schürenberg’s book, Perle für Perle, is one such book.

Review: Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th Century (2 Volume Set)
This is the first fashion book we have reviewed here at the APCS and what a book to start with. This two-volume, hardbound edition weighs in at a whopping 18 pounds of fashion. It’s important to understand that this set, while hefty and choked full of photos is basically a coffee-table edition on steroids. You’ll get lavish photos, a wealth of captions but not an in-depth analysis of these period of fashion.

Review: Handbags: The Making of a Museum
Judith Clark’s superb book, Handbags: The Making of a Museum, is a unique and compelling treatment on the object of our affections: the purse. Besides picturing the entire collection of approximately 300 purses, chapters are also devoted to a discussion of the actual creation and design of the museum, including the making and posing of the mannequins …

Review: Vintage Handbags
Marnie Fogg was a university lecturer on fashion and textiles and is now a fashion expert and media consultant on all aspects of the fashion industry. This book is about 20th century handbags and goes through the century decade by decade. There are also short sections on designers including Schiaparelli, Chanel, Pucci, Bonnie Cashin and Enid Collins.

Review: I Just Love That Bag
The first thing you notice about this book, is that it’s not just a book, but it’s also a bag and includes some lovely purse themed stationery with two designs on 10 cards.