In Ariadne's Threads: The Construction and Significance of Clothes in the Aegean Bronze Age, Bernice R. Jones “attempts to define and understand the construction of the garments, to seek foreign or indigenous sources for the designs, to chart influences abroad, to resolve issues of dating, and where possible to determine the significance of dress and its identification with roles of women” (p. 1). To present reconstructions of Minoan and Mycenaean garments, which is a large aspect of the book, Jones draws both upon visual arts, such as sealings, sculptural figures, and wall paintings, and prior scholarly literature. She provides a complex multifaceted study to treat the topic positioned as “among the least understood and most important artistic achievements of the Minoan civilization” (p. 1).The analysis is presented in nine chapters accompanied by hundreds of illustrative figures used to build and demonstrate the points of arguments. For the recreations, the illustrations include photographs and redrawings of artworks, photographs of garment recreations worn by models, and pattern and construction diagrams. Many photographs are in color. Figure captions are not included, which impedes use of the book since the reader must refer to the list of figures in the front as well as search for facts and interpretive information in the text. Extensive footnotes and bibliography aid in following the author's reasoning, but lack of an index foils attempts to review a topic throughout the book, such as terracotta artworks or discussions on weaving technologies and trade systems.The book progresses chronologically. The first chapter provides background from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods on fibers and weaving. Chapter 2 examines the scant evidence regarding textiles and dress from Early Bronze Age Greece and pre-palatial Crete. The next chapter covers the Minoan Middle Bronze Age, in which terracotta artworks and inscribed seals display more easily analyzed representations of the human body and dress elements. Comparanda from the Near East and from Egypt (including the Tarkhan dress) are introduced, suggesting influences, trans-cultural exchange, and precedents for Minoan garments.Problems for the reader occur regarding terminology—problems that amplify as the study develops. Discussion of the distinction between a reconstruction and a recreation, for example, is missing, yet this distinction is crucial to comprehend and evaluate the arguments for the garment proposals. Jones uses the term reconstruction for her garment proposals made using modern commercial cloth as exemplars of prehistoric clothing. The word reconstruction is problematic in this usage, as it implies that remains or actual fragments of an original garment are the basis for making it anew. This is not the case, since the archaeological record has no extant Minoan or Mycenaean garments or confirmed identifiable parts of garments. To avoid such confusion, Elizabeth Barber (2003) argued for the use of the word recreation, explaining that successful recreations may indeed provide new solutions to understanding dress that we may only otherwise hypothesize because of the lack of concrete remains. Because Jones also uses the term reconstruction as a term to describe new arrangements of pieces of fragmentary artworks presented in the book, the reader may be confused as to whether she is referring to an artwork reconstruction or a garment reconstruction when she uses the term. Jones either does not concede there is a difference between the two concepts or missed Barber's discussion of the issue.Despite this, Jones's artwork reconstructions are among the excellent contributions of the study and, by clarifying and/or correcting prior artwork reconstructions, they serve the goal “to determine the significance of dress and its identification with roles of women” (p. 1). In her artwork reconstructions Jones provides a new, often subtle, version of an artwork such as a fresco, by rearmament of misaligned pieces and/or addition of unused pieces that she has determined belong in the artwork. Increasing an artwork's accuracy opens pathways for insights into its meaning and into a deeper understanding of the depicted garments, gains which will also be useful to other scholars of the Bronze Age Aegean.The author used a methodology (p. 3) first proposed by Margarete Bieber (1918), based on Bieber's recreations of classical Greek Amazon dress. Jones's endorsement of Bieber's position—that artworks and the garments depicted in them reflect the artist's creative imperative and may not reflect reality—compromises the investigation's potential to propose convincing garment solutions. While Bieber's perspective must be considered, I have argued the reverse elsewhere. The underlying assumption in experimental garment recreation is that the artist presents the viewer with an image related to empirical reality, one, which may serve to launch experimental recreations in a search for a good match to the garment and its textiles as presented there (Lillethun 2003).Optimal garment recreation would use the fiber (raw materials) and textile technologies appropriate to that era. In the case of the Bronze Age Aegean, only some of these parameters are known. Fibers need to be hand spun to match authentic yarns. Known dyestuffs and dyeing processes of the period should be used to color them. Appropriate weaving technologies are also required: here, this means weaving the main fabrics on a warp-weighted loom or two-beam loom, and weaving the bands with a tablet-weaving setup. Only thus will the fabrics hang and behave the way the ancient ones did (and the differences can be quite considerable). Unfortunately, this level of garment recreation has not been attained by Aegean Bronze Age scholars to date due to lack of concrete garment remains upon which to base experimentation. Growing evidence from Akrotiri, such as a textile fragment with a red embroidery thread found recently (Smith and Tzachili 2012), is providing material for increased experimentation in weaving. But currently, substituting modern approximations, as Jones has done, still provides plausible recreations for evaluation.The combination of Jones's adherence to Bieber's approach and apparent mismatches in approximating Bronze Age Aegean garments in the use of modern cloths result, however, in some recreations showing poor relationship to cloth drape and movement that some Minoan and Mycenaean artists skillfully represented (Lillethun 2009–2010). For example, in the case study of the dancing girl (compare Figures 4.92 a and b to Figures 4.92 c and d), the silhouette edges of the skirt differ greatly between the artwork and the recreation. The silhouette edges of the recreated skirt are smooth, whereas the source artwork fresco presents silhouette edges that show five distinct panels or flounces erupting outward. Jones's recreation falls short when compared to the structure and cloth represented in the original artwork.Despite sometimes awkward-appearing fabric “hand” (weight, texture, and drape) relative to the artwork depiction, several of the recreations propose very plausible solutions to garments observed in the corpus, including the peak-backed garments (pp. 27–49), the side-pleated skirt (pp. 227–39), and the so-called bolero (pp. 277–81). Also noteworthy is Chapter 4, Jones's suggestion that the main garment's shape—sack-like or loose tube-like—of the early period changed over time through cutting and sewing the cloth to fit the waist more closely and to have an open or partially closed center front. This recreation proposal and others in the book—such as a dress with a hipline seam joining a bodice and skirt—do not, however, resolve the question of whether the Minoan female wardrobe included a tightly fitted bodice (a cut and sewn upper body garment without an attached lower body covering).Other issues with terminology beyond that of reconstruction and recreation mar the study. One instance is the use of the word “dress.” In current scholarship “dress” usually indicates human acts to manage appearance, inclusive of grooming, body modifications such as cosmetics and hair styling, and accessorizing or adding supplements to the body, such as garments and jewelry (Eicher and Roach-Higgins 1992; Roach-Higgins and Eicher 1992). “Dress” is used as a noun for a specific garment only when indicating a modern woman's garment, one that covers the torso, at least in part, and part of the legs. Jones appears unware of the distinction within the disciplinary discourse, for example in titling Chapter 4 “Late Bronze Age Dresses.” Further, Jones incorrectly uses “robe” and “dress” interchangeably at some points.Chapters 5 through 8 diverge from the chronological presentation to a thematic one on skirts. Here is another instance of terminology problems. To date there is not an agreed standard lexicon for skirt or other garment variants observed in the Bronze Age Aegean corpus, although Janice L. Crowley's IconAegean seal imagery database (available online at http://www.iconaegean.com/) implicitly proposes one. Jones asserts that her study is broader than just seals, that she has analyzed all Bronze Age Aegean artworks (or images of them) that depict clothes. But she does not provide a rationale for garment categorization or her nomenclature. As a result, other scholars will be limited in their ability to evaluate her categorization and variant names used. Jones elucidates no thorough analysis and categorization of skirt forms, instead presenting a selection of skirts that leave numerous questions open regarding their base structures and surface application of flounces or trimmings.Has Jones produced a set of skirt and other garment variants appropriate to the entire corpus? To answer this question, one wishes that an appendix had been included with the details of each garment recreation to enable other scholars the opportunity to review the source material for a given recreation. Had the author done so, other scholars could have confirmed her work or offered up variant solutions using the same source material.The concluding Chapter 9 describes accessories, including cloaks, mantles, shawls, and scarves. The chapter also includes aprons and the previously mentioned bolero or frontless blouse. The recreations in this chapter are all plausible.Jones set for herself some very challenging goals. Specialists in the various sub-disciplines, such as Aegean writing (Linear A and B) and religion, and Egyptian and Near Eastern art and regional trade, will wish to evaluate the plausibility of the author's arguments and conclusions related to their own fields. This review focuses more narrowly on the clothes noted in the book title. Jones's discussion of regional influences or parallels to Bronze Age Aegean dress shows clear examples of dress-related design exchange in the broad region. Furthermore, the book's treatment of dress development over time laudably, but only partially, accounts for precedents to the complexities of Minoan cloth and garment design. Conclusions regarding the significance of women's dress and of women's roles as presented in the book were undercut by the author's lack of precision and consistency of terminology, lack of clarity in garment categorization, and use of a limiting recreation methodology. The overarching disciplinary need for comprehensive garment categorization based on imagery and written sources unfortunately was not served by the book, although it might have been, given its claims. Despite these enumerated shortcomings, many of the book's concepts and recreation proposals concerning Minoan dress are worthy ones. Readers may mine it for insights or to discover points of departure for continued recreation scholarship on this topic.