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Fashion History - Precollege

Fashion History Precollege

 

Welcome Summer students! Come get lost in the beautiful and fascinating world of fashion history. This is a guide for how to research fashion history and what books and databases FIT Library can offer you while you're taking your class.  You can also find recommendations for online tools and resources to continue learning even after your class ends. 

How to Research a Time Period?

Dressmaker's Dummy

​Searching for fashion by a specific time period or decade can be tricky because the same time period can be described several different ways and information about a time period may be found in several different sections of the library.  There is no one phrase that will bring back all the clothing of a specific period or decade so try a few different searches to see what works.  Here are some suggestions of searches to start with. For example if you're researching the 1960s:

1960s     Nineteen sixties     60s     60s fashion     Mod fashion     Hippie fashion   

Here are some other tips for researching by a decade:

  • Search by designer, not designer by decade.  For example, if you were to search "Chanel 20s" you would find very few books.  However if you were to search for just "Chanel" then look through the many books we have on her, you would find plenty of her designs from the 1920s.  Because a designer's career can span decades, it's difficult to restrict a search to a specific designer AND a specific decade.
  • Search by type of clothing.  Looking for a 1960s wedding dress?  Instead of "1960s wedding dress" search for "wedding dress" then look through some of the books you find for images from the 1960s.