Erté's Theatrical Costumes in Full Color

Sumptuous illustrations of Erte's designs for opera, ballet, and theatre. A must-read for anyone interested in art deco style, fashion history, or costume design.

This book is a beautiful, color presentation of Erte's theatre costume designs. Each costume is given a full page treatment with a title at the bottom. There's a 3 paragraph small introduction and that's it for the text - so there are no analyses of the costumes or influences despite this spanning 50 years of Erte's work.

Since these are theatrical costumes, they are best suited for the theatre industry and not necessarily for fashion historians. Most are quite exotic or elaborate and designed with a very specific purpose in mind. But that said, they are all quite fascinating and very robust. Certainly, well worth the read just to enjoy a master designer at his craft.

In the modern age of fashion design, we often get called out for making designs that are too 'costumey'. But Erte proves that costumes can transcend their original identity and take on a role of art in and of their own self. I would have loved to see actual iterations of any of these costumes as a result.

In all, a decent sized volume in beautiful color. Although heavily influence by the deco period, they are not necessarily art deco designs. But they are the very best one could want from a costume designer and quite fascinating to study or just enjoy. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

This book is an absolute delight for any fan of costume design history, and it is sure to inspire budding theatrical designers. Brilliant and colourful, these costumes include designs for the ballet, the opera and famous actresses, such as Gaby Deslys. My favourites include the monster with three heads for the ballet Sheherazade, the pink and purple flowing octopus and the fantastic clock with the 18th century lady and the cloaked man.

I received this free ebook from Net Galley in return for an honest review.

Beautiful full colour illustrations. I didn't know about Erte before this book and it was nice to read a little biography of his career and to see some of his work.

What a wonderful this book is, not only for the wonderful graphics, but also for the clever and imaginative designs that were created. Anyone who is interested in stage productions, art of any form and design would gain a lot of insight into the over the top style of theatre. I love this book - pictures only with captions - but what imagination.

So gorgeous and expresive, the amazing way that a costume can show the story evento before it start.
Fashion is an art and one of the greatest ones

I was thrilled to get to read this book in exchange for a review. Absolutely beautiful full color plates of 40 of Erte's theatrical costumes. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is because I would have like to read a little more about each. Lovely, just left me wanting more information.

Review on Goodreads.

As with most Dover art books, this one features a wide array of illustrations on the subject matter. However, the text in the eVersion we downloaded didn't jive with the art. If you're an Erte fan or interested in theatrical costumes, you might find this a worthwhile addition to your book collection.

Erté's Theatrical Costumes in Full Color is a great coffee table-book, in all the best ways. Coffee table-books are often ridiculed, as if being placed on a coffee table implies a sense of neglect or 'I don't really care'-attitude. In our house, the books placed on the coffee table were treated with a completely opposite attitude. These were the books you enjoyed looking through, whose illustrations could capture your attention until your coffee was long cold. They were also the types of books you'd enjoy guests looking through, always with a sense of 'look at the beautiful things I read'. It is in that sense that I call Erté's Theatrical Costumes in Full Color a coffee table-book.

I absolutely loved looking through the illustrations in this book. Ranging across the world for inspiration, Erté's costumes are incredibly vibrant and stunning. What I loved was how all of it looked so elegant and intricate and yet so fluid at the same time. With no stretch of the imagination could I see these costumes in motion on the stages of ballet and opera houses. At the same time these costumes had a theatricality to it that I would like to see in more movie costumes. Especially the Octopus costume was brilliant, in that it both actually looked like an octopus while still being a costume.

Overall this was a great collection of prints. Although there is a lack of information to them, regarding when they were designed and for what etc., they are stunning on their own. I would love to own a hardcover of this book.

Overall: 4/5
Illustration: 5/5
Cover: 5/5

The reason I'm giving this book four stars is not because the book isn't good enough, but simply because I don't love the designing style that much. However, I have to say that the beautiful illustrations do make it a book worth reading for theater-goers and costume lovers. Overall, it is pretty cool :)

Once upon a time I found a couple of Dover collections of Erté's work; I was young enough to be a little scandalized by some images, but old enough to buy them for myself – and aware enough to be deeply impressed, for the work to make an impression. So it was great to see this volume of theatrical costumes from his slightly twisted imagination, including some I'd never seen before. Vivid, electric, and unforgettable – that's Erté.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review.

I first saw postcards of Erté designs when I was a teenager (thirty odd years ago), and remember being intrigued and mesmerized by the colours, the design, the style... This book provides a visual feast for any Erté fan, with large, good quality pictures of the designs.

Perhaps a slight downside is that there is very little information to put the costumes in context. Also, you would need to explore further than this book if you want to know more about the man himself.

Having said that, I'd still buy this, just to look at the pictures.

Stunning works by a classic master of art. This would make a welcome addition to any historical fashion, art and illustration fans. Being a costume designer myself I devoured the beauty within these pages.

There's not much to this book - it's a short forty-eight pages long - but what's here is beautiful.

Érte is one of those names you might recognize but not be quite so sure why. Érte is a theatrical costume designer who created some of the most stunning costumes ever seen on stage throughout the 20th century. His designs are works of art by themselves and you just might want to buy two copies of this book so that you can tear out all the pages and frame each painting.

When I'm not reading books and writing about books, I work in professional theatre. I've often been impressed by the design concepts for the costumes. Some designers are much better at presenting the designs than others, with some including backgrounds and interesting poses. Érte is one such designer. You get the feeling that his concepts aren't just about the costume, but about the mood the costume evoke in the actor and the setting in which it will be used, as well.

I'd love to see photographs of the costumes themselves, in use on stage. I Googled a couple of them (That Octopus costume! That Ceres costume!) and most of these are pretty scarce, but then again, some are from as early as 1911!

There is a strong sense of Art Deco and Art Nouveau here. Being a theatrical and fashion designer, Érte had a hand in creating these genres.

Looking for a good book? <em>Érte's Theatrical Costumes</em> is all-around beautiful and worth picking up for anyone interested in fashion, theatre, theatrical costuming, and art.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.