This volume arose out of a 2012 conference called ‘Rags and Riches: Dress and Dress Accessories in Social Context’ at the University of Reading, which was designed to bring together archaeologists and dress historians to discuss methodology surrounding the interpretation of dress evidence. The resulting volume, however, as the authors say (p. viii), is more narrowly defined. Although the authors’ Introduction discusses dress in general, all but one (Standley) of the eight papers in the volume focus on dress accessories, rather than clothing or any other aspect of appearance. This is both the strength and the weakness of the volume. Its strength lies in its stated aim of moving beyond what the editors justifiably describe as the limited typological focus of most traditional work on dress accessories in archaeology, to look at the broader meaning of such objects in terms of identity and social dynamics. This is a clear desideratum of the field and is to be heartily welcomed, as is the fact that the contributions to the volume genuinely live up to this aim. The claims made in the Introduction for the significance of dress, based especially on work that has been done on clothing and garments, are slightly at odds with the different nature of the jewellery and dress accessories under discussion. Similarly, those archaeologists working on dress iconography or textile studies, for example, might baulk at the assumption made by the editors in their Introduction that jewellery and similar items represent the totality of dress evidence in archaeology. Nonetheless, the contributors themselves do not make this assumption in their papers, and the wide chronological focus of the volume—from the Middle Bronze Age to the Early Modern period—coupled with the geographic focus on Britain (although two papers look at the Roman north-west more generally), affords the opportunity to compare methodologies of similar material across a meaningful spectrum.

The first paper (Wilkin) looks at ornament hoards in Middle Bronze Age Britain and suggests that patterns in what was deposited—and how it was done—over space and time, reflect changing ideas about the relationship of humans to the world of the dead, as well as socioeconomic changes resulting from increased agricultural development. This is followed by Adams's paper on the earliest brooches in Iron Age Britain, arguing that their relative scarcity in the period means that they must have held a very different, perhaps more individualised, meaning than in later periods. Ivleva's paper on brooches in the Roman north-west departs from traditional scholarship by using object-biography theory and focusing squarely on the myriad uses and meaning of such items within their ‘lifetimes’ over and above fastening clothing. In so doing, she also challenges rigid notions about the gendered and ethnic associations of these brooches. Hoss's paper is also a breath of fresh air in its combined use of written, iconographic and artefactual evidence to understand the significance of Roman military belts and changes in their ornamentation for Roman military identity. Knox's paper argues for an approach to Middle Anglo-Saxon dress accessories that takes into account their varying uses and meanings in different contexts, such as everyday life, ritual and death. Somewhat of a leap in time occurs to the final three contributions, which all look at the early modern period. Standley's paper on clothing in the north-east of England in the sixteenth-century, based on surviving wills and inventories, shows how such documents can help to fill gaps in our knowledge of dress styles of the time. It also sheds light on the significance of gifting garments as items of material, religious and sentimental value. Awais-Dean's paper uses finds of dress accessories from Renaissance Britain to argue that items formerly associated with elite men, due to their appearance in portraiture, were actually more widely used by non-elite men. The final paper of the volume by Campbell looks at the ‘highland brooch’ of early modern Scotland and argues that, rather than seeing it as part of ‘folk costume’, it should be understood in the cultural context in which it arose. In particular, the brooch is associated with the development of a ‘highland’ visual and dress culture in the period, as well as being used alongside more cosmopolitan, urban cultural objects, negating the idea of an exclusive ethnic material culture.

All of these papers present truly significant new approaches to the study of archaeological dress accessories, and together they are likely to make a valuable contribution to widening the field from its long-standing typological focus. While some of the papers missed the opportunity to apply some theoretical approaches of obvious relevance to dress accessories, such as fashion theory (the one exception is Hoss), other methodologies such as agency theory (e.g. Ivleva, Knox) are used very effectively to cast dress objects in a new light. What is most commendable is that none of the contributions falls into the common trap of seeing dress accessories as ends in themselves, rather than as fasteners of clothing or as part of wider dress ensembles. Indeed, all of the papers, in their own ways, reflect on the original uses, positions and visibility of the items in relation to clothing, as well as their connections with posture, gesture, the senses and other corporeal concerns. As such, one can agree wholeheartedly with the words of the editors in their Introduction that the methodologies presented in the volume, “as well as a theoretical focus upon materials and materiality, may well be able to meaningfully contribute to the wider interdisciplinary subject” (p. 6).