Shirley Miles O'Donnol provides both illustrations and written descriptions of styles worn in everyday life and suggests ways of adapting them to stage use. Her animated and informative text gives an overview of social trends as well as insight into the fashions themselves. Since women's fashions change more frequently and more radically than men's, the chapters follow the eras in women's apparel: "The First World War," "The Flaming Twenties," "The Depressed Thirties," "The Second World War," "The Postwar Era and the 'New Look,'" "The Late Fifties: Dawn of the Space Age," and "The Sixties: Unisex and Miniskirts."

Lavishly illustrated with original drawings by the author, photographs of costumes now in museum collections, and drawings and photographs taken from fashion magazines spanning more than fifty years, American Costume, 1915-1970 is a practical—and entertaining—handbook for the stage costumer.