Little Black Dress: from Mourning to Night/ Shannon Meyer/160 pages

Little Black Dress: from Mourning to Night, written by Shannon Meyer, is the companion book to an exhibit recently hosted by the St. Louis History Museum.  The book follows the development of the black dress connected to the very rich and widows in the 1800 up to current fashion.  The book is well illustrated with samples of clothing from the exhibition.  Originally, black cloth was prohibitively expensive for most women due to the excessive amount of dye needed to achieve the color.  As dyes became more affordable the use of black became more wide spread, but only for married women.  As taste changed and Coco Chanel grew in popularity, more fashion houses began to create black evening clothing and younger and younger woman began to wore these fashions.  This book offers an interesting look at the evolution of the black dress with a few other interesting asides as well.