Vintage Couture Tailoring by Thomas von Nordheim

[Henry Hall]

This is a fine book, not overly expensive and details the construction of a lady's coat/jacket along the lines of high quality couture. The photos are very good and clear and the text is not a maze of vague instructions. The author did his apprenticeship at a couture house rather than a bespoke tailoring house, but there is a lot of overlap in technique as well as some differences.


Von Nordheim teaches at the London College of Fashion and is also a milliner. His business website is here.



Vintage Couture Tailoring at Amazon


Here at Waterstones.


Also here at bol.com for NL/BE

[Anna]

I recently purchased the kindle version of this book and really enjoyed it. There are a lot of techniques that I haven't seen in other books like easing the armholes in the back to reduce fullness- I had never seen that before. Also he gives clear explanation of why to do certain things one way or another and in some situations describes ways that others prefer to do things. It doesn't really follow the construction of a jacket from start to finish but it's easy enough to decipher at which point in the construction things should be done.

[Tailleuse]

I've owned this book for a few years and it's excellent.  It had terrific instructions on pad stitching and a great anecdote about a woman studying for her master tailor exam in the 1930s. My only gripe is that the typeface could be bigger and darker.

I often have fantasies of going off to the study with people when I win the lottery.  Von Nordheim is on my fantasy tour.