Research Guides (LibGuides): PCA 252: Fashioning Identity: A History of Dress (Meaden): Useful Websites

Museums

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Costume Institute @ The MET
The Costume Institute collection includes thousands of costumes and accessories, representing 700 years of global fashion.
The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)
The mission of the Museum is to collect, conserve, document, exhibit, and interpret fashion. The Museum’s permanent collection encompasses some 50,000 garments and accessories from the 18th century to the present.
National Museum of American History: Clothing and Accessories
The National Museum of American History contains 350 years of garments and accessories from the mundane to the profound documenting the ever-changing landscape of American design.
The Textile Museum @ George Washington University
"The Textile Museum expands public knowledge and appreciation—locally, nationally, and internationally—of the artistic merits and cultural importance of the world’s textiles." -- from their mission statement
Victoria and Albert Museum
The joint collections of Textiles and Dress contain almost 53,090 items and the Fashion collection is currently the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world. Contains links to past exhibits, videos, and articles on major subjects.

Costuming Internet Reources

Chicago History Museum, Digital Collection: Costume and Textile Collection The Chicago History Museum's Costume and Textile Collection features 50,000-plus artifacts from the mid-18th century to the present. Its focus reflects its urban origins: many of its contents were worn by "former presidents and first ladies, sports stars, celebrities or everyday people." Otherwise the items' connections to Chicago are via dressmakers, milliners, and manufacturers. The collection is particularly strong in 20th-century items, women's wear, and pieces designed by Charles James. Images and metadata are of high quality and vetted by the museum. (R. Tolley-Stokes, East Tenn. State U. for CHOICE)
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See also Treasured Ten: Selections from the Costume Collection
April 9, 2022–January 16, 2023
https://www.chicagohistory.org/exhibition/treasured-ten/
Costume Gallery Websites "You may tour through the 14 areas of The Costume Gallery Websites. We have over 40,000 web pages, 85,000 images, and two databases. Our websites vastly covers the history of the fashion / costume / textile industries."
Costume Page
Costumer's Manifesto
Daphne Dare Collection British designer Daphne Dare (1929-2000) designed for major theatres on both sides of the Atlantic as well as for television and film. Learn more at https://library.osu.edu/tri/explore and https://scout.wisc.edu/archives/r27695/daphne_dare_collection
Drexel University: The Fox Historic Costume Collection
"The mission of the Robert and Penny Fox Historic Costume Collection is to educate and inspire through the documentation, exhibition, and preservation of historic costume." -- from the Collection's mission statement
Elizabethan Costuming Page This site, divided into 16 sections, focuses on a broad variety of topics related to clothing in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. Of particular interest are those entitled, "Portraits and Pictures" and "Regional and National Fashions."
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Useful to Renaissance enthusiasts and those involved with costuming!
Europeana Fashion Explore fashion – historical clothing and accessories, contemporary designs, catwalk photographs, drawings, sketches, plates, catalogues and videos – from more than 30 European public and private institutions.
FIT's Fashion History Timeline
The Fashion History Timeline is an open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe. The Timeline website offers well-researched, accessibly written entries on specific artworks, garments and films for those interested in fashion and dress history.
Google Images: Costume History This link performs the search described in the titles and provides a vast array of costume history-related images!
Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection The mission of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection is to further "the understanding of human beings within their material and social environments through the study of textiles of artistic, cultural, and historic significance." It is primarily a teaching collection serving the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Human Ecology's Design Studies Department. It includes 13,000 textiles and related objects spanning spanning various places, techniques, and time periods.
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The Digital Collections database provides open access to images and cataloging information for almost 9,000 items in the HLATC. This unique trove is very useful for research and instruction in the study of textiles. The collection is especially strong in ethnographic textiles and costumes from all over the world, especially Latin American, African, South and Southeast Asian, and Turkish objects. It is also strong in 19th- and 20th-century American and European home furnishing and apparel fabrics. The database is fully searchable by keyword, title, subject, and geographic area. (Y. Cortes, Skidmore College for CHOICE)
Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design
The Motley Collection consists of over 5000 costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric documenting 150 productions of Shakespeare and modern classics.
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The majority of the collection has been digitized, and can be searched by play title, theater name, actor and director names, as well as medium. In addition, production notes have been compiled for selected plays; for example, a researcher interested in a 1954 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream can view excerpts of reviews, commentary from the set and costume designer, Margaret Harris, and a cast list including Vanessa Redgrave who played Helena.
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Tonic to the Imagination:Costume Design for Stage & Screen by B.J. Simmons & Co.,1889-1959 The B.J. Simmons & Co. costume shop in London produced costumes for theater and film, along with renting out costumes to such venues for over 100 years. The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin has a web exhibition of 228 costume designs from over 60 productions from the span of 1889-1959.

PCA 252: Fashioning Identity: A History of Dress (Meaden)

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