Here are 2 books I found to be invaluable in my quest to reconstruct historical clothing. They may not be a magic anything, but I find I use them frequently (at least the Fischbach book.)

The first book is a compendium of historic textile pattern. Fabrics run all the way from 4th to 18th C., with plenty of representation for the 13th, 14th and 15th. C The 212 plates are in color and note the century, place the fabric was woven and sometimes the fiber content. This is a pretty painless way to absorb patterns- put the book in the loo and look at the plates, pretty soon you’ll understand what makes a Byzantine pattern different than a 16th C. Italian.

Historic Textile patterns in full color
Friedrich Fischbach
Dover reprint
ISBN 0-486-27074-2
Available through Amazon.com for $14.95
Usually ships within 24 hours http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0486270742/qid%3D/103-0011647-6350256

The second book covers exactly what the name implies. It’s not a bad book, and in some ways it’s really good. However, most of her reconstruction's are of what the angels in the paintings are wearing, so I question what she chose to reconstruct and why. The most useful chapter for me is 16- “Discrepancies in Painted Dress”, where the author gives a very lucid and comprehendible explanation of what to look for in paintings. This chapter can help the observer to notice where the artist are tweaking reality and where they simply don’t have a clue what’s going on with the clothing so they “improvise” (like Angus McBride does in the Osprey books all the time!) Reading this chapter and studying the painting she tears apart can really, really help you move forward in interpreting paintings to use as source material.

Dress in Italian Painting - 1460-1500
Elizabeth Birbari
ISBN 0-7195 2423 7
ABE has a copy for US$22.70 http://dogbert.abebooks.com/abe/IList

Hope this helps-

Amazon lists it as 'special order' at $225, but they probably have it at most university libraries (UMCP had it in their art library, which is where I first encountered it, and their library system is fairly sucky).

The first volume is all text, the second is huge, lavish mostly-color plates. The main focus of the art is the 14th-early 16th centuries. Volume 1 goes into detail about the techniques that the artists used to portray 'otherness', like saints, fools, peasants, foreigners, etc. Both volumes are oversize and hefty, and volume 2 is particularly luscious.