The Power of (Writing) History: Jules Quicherat, France's First Fashion Historian.

This article re-evaluates Jules Quicherat's (1814-1882) contributions to French dress studies. Quicherat was the first French historian to develop a theory on the development of clothing in French history by analyzing material artifacts, pictorial, textual, and philological sources. This paper argues that Quicherat should be recognized as the founder of French dress studies, and that his book, Histoire du costume en France, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (1875), is a key text that established a method, theory, and framework for understanding dress history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]