So many women ask us, 'Why don't people dress up any more?' Linda Przybyszewski, a professor of history at Notre Dame and an accomplished dressmaker, takes a serious look at what has happened to American women's fashion. In the first half of the twentieth century, seminal figures in Home Economics, Retail, and Art departments, dubbed the Dress Doctors by the author, taught generations of girls and women principles of design and practicality. They showed American women of all classes how to dress for any occasion. Przybyszewski contends that the demise of Home Ec classes that began in the 1970s eroded this knowledge and the 'tyranny of age and size' replaced these timeless rules of fashion. This history and its terrific illustrations suggests that they can once again be discovered.