Set and Costume Designs for Ballet and Theater Alexander Schouvaloff (I've got it! Courtesy of my Mom finding out I was a footnote in it. Shouvaloff used to be the V&A curator of Theatre Prints, then the first curator of the new Theatre Museum in London. This means all his books are filled with prints few folks have had access to until recently, plus an amazing degree of research and scholarship on the artist's involved. ALL his books are OofD's, not just this one.)

The Art of Ballets Russes : The Serge Lifar Collection of Theater Designs, Costumes, and Paintings at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut, Alexander Schouvaloff.

The Art of Haute Couture is a big heavy stack of color photos of details and overviews of great couture garments of the 20th century, with a bit of text and binding to glue it together.  The pictures are the thing, and there are lots of them.

Cut of Men's Clothes : 1600-1900, Norah Waugh (The pre-Janet Arnold historic pattern goddess, Waugh made triple duty books that included 1/3 patterns from antiques, 1/3 patterns from historic books, and 1/3 writing from contemporary sources on clothing at the time. Despite their expense, these books are really must-haves, especially this one that has the many patterns for men's clothing during the period covered).

The Cut of Women's Clothes, 1600-1930 Norah Waugh (ditto what I said above, save only that Janet Arnold has superceded this book's preeminence with her own.)

Corsets and Crinolines Also by Norah Waugh, with history and patterns.

Chinese Clothing : An Illustrated Guide, Valery M. Garrett (Highly illustrated, and high on drool factor)

Art to Wear Lavish gorgeous and amazing.  Memorable pieces of Wearable art from the 1970's-1990's.  All color large format, just add legs and it is your coffee table...

The History of Beads : From 30,000 B.C. to the Present Lois Sherr Dubin (Hardback version with fold out chart) (The "Bible" on beads in a gleaming, huge color coffee table book version, without anything missing. If you can't possibly afford it, get the shorter paperback version, but if you can afford it the bead chart alone makes this version the most useful bead book ever produced.) 

Period Costume for Stage & Screen : Patterns for Women's Dress, Medieval-1500 Jean Hunnisett, Kathryn Turner (Illustrator) Worth every penny of it's hefty price tag, this book is high on scholarship, illustrations, easy to understand text and diagrams, and is one of the best, most detailed how-to manuals for costumers ever written. I had been working as a costumer for almost 20 years when I first saw this book and still, I'd say lots of it's techniques were a revelation. It shows in essence, how to reproduce costumes in this period in such a way as to make them indistinguishable from originals. 

Period Costume for Stage & Screen : Patterns for Women's Dress 1500-1800, Jean Hunnisett, another volume like the above.

Period Costume for Stage & Screen : Patterns for Women's Dress, 1800-1909, Jean Hunnisett, Kathryn Turner (Illustrator), another volume like the above.

Men's Seventeenth & Eighteenth Century Costume : Cut and Fashion R. I. Davis A very similar book to the above, covering Menswear 1600-1800.  I've just got my copy and it is a total drool-fest, with patterns, photos and text showing period reality, and film/theatre designs that attempt to interpret that reality.

Period Costume for Stage and Screen : Patterns for Outer Garments: Cloaks, Capes, Stoles and Wadded Mantles Same author, same idea...

Our New Clothes : Acquisitions of the 1990s Photos and text on the costume objects that The Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired during the 1990's.

Fashion in Detail : From the 17th and 18th Centuries Yummy detailed photos of museum garments of the 17th and 18th Centuries.  One of the less expensive drool objects to be found, it nonetheless is full of color pictures and clear tiny diagrams. 

The Art of Dress : Clothes and Society, 1500-1914, Jane Ashelford.  Photos from collections held by the National Trust (UK), with an interesting narrative showing how these items relate to and illuminate British social history.  Another bargain full of great pictures and interesting text.

  Haute Couture & Pret-A-Porter : Mode 1750-2000 This tasty paperback has lots of great photos of early museum originals inside, despite it's rather plain, modernist cover.

Patterns of Fashion 1: Englishwoman's Dresses and Their Construction: c.1660-1860 by Janet Arnold the late, great, goddess of us all.  Patterns from museum originals drawn on a 1/8" grid to 1/8 scale, plus line drawings and construction details telling you exactly how the beasts went together.  Great scholarship put into a form that has instant application to reproducing costumes for theatre or reenactment in real life.

Patterns of Fashion 2 : Englishwomen's Dresses and Their Construction C.1860-1940 See above.

Patterns of Fashion : The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C1560-1620 Like the above, but further off the diving board.  Includes men's patterns too, plus photos and essays on the clothes.  You know this woman was truly devoted to her research the moment you start reading about the damage to the original costumes caused by the messy fact that most were once grave clothes.

Irving Penn Regards the Work of Issey Miyake : Photographs 1975-1998 Issey Miyake is the pattern drafting god of our time.  In this book a notable modern photographer shows his best examples of his work in their best light.

Eiko on Stage Designs by one of the most avant-garde theatre and film designers of our time.

Costume in Detail : 1730-1930 Hand drawn pictures show details of women's clothing construction that can't be made clear in photos.  Invaluable tool for museum professionals and vintage clothing collectors to "date" garments by details of sewing construction, also useful for people who want to replicate clothes to a high degree of exactitude.

20,000 Years of Fashion : The History of Costume and Personal Adornment the big fat book with more information and pictures per inch than any other.  I blame this one for having got me into costumes in the first place.