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Fashion Design: Inspiration, Illustration, and Tools

Inspiration from Historic Garments

Berg Fashion Library

Berg Fashion Library

contains fashion specific dictionaries and encyclopedias.  It's a great place to get definitions and overviews on a topic.

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Gale Virtual Reference Library

contains fashion specific dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Artstor

Artstor

has thousands of images from museum collections around the world.  You can browse by Country of Origin, Museum, Medium and Time Period.

Vogue Archive

Vogue Archive

Every issue from 1892-Current, including articles, ads, editorial content 

FITDIL: FIT Digital Image Library

FITDIL: FIT Digital Image Library

digital repository database of approximately 64,000 digital images intended for both research and instructional use by FIT students and faculty. Includes our designer files.

Harper's Bazaar Archive

Harper's Bazaar Archive

Harper's Bazaar (US): 1867-present
Harper's Bazaar (UK): April 1930 - Dec 1969
Harpers and Queen (UK): Nov 1970 - Feb 2006
Harper's Bazaar (UK): Mar 2006 - Dec 2015

I Need Images of Garments

Designers get a lot of ideas from garments of the past. FIT's online sources provide great garment images. Artstor, museum sites, and the Berg Fashion Library include lots of clear photographs of clothes in museum collections. The Women's Magazine Archive, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar can be found in ProQuest databases, and we have other great historic sources as well.
 

EMc/MS 2021

Other Museum Websites (gallery)

Asian Fashion Archive

Asian Fashion Archive

The Asian Fashion Archive is a digital resource project, which highlights Asian fashion, culture, and history.

Fashion and Race Database

Fashion and Race Database

A database with the goal of centering and amplifying voices voices of those who have been racialized (and thus marginalized) in fashion, illuminate under-examined histories and address racism throughout the fashion system. Featuring resources, digital objects, biographical profiles, essays, directory and calendar of events

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met's collection includes more than 40,000 items dating from contemporary fashion back to 4,000 B.C. ranging from recent couture to textiles and accessories that give insight into life from the pre-Columbian era.

Kyoto Costume Institute Website

The Kyoto Costume Institute, Japan

KCI's collection currently ranges from the 17th century to the present day, with holdings of 12,000 items of clothing and 16,000 documents.

Bata Shoe Museum Website

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada

BSM celebrates the style and function of footwear in four impressive galleries. Footwear on display ranges from Chinese bound foot shoes and ancient Egyptian sandals to chestnut-crushing clogs and glamorous platforms.

Fashion Museum Bath Website

Fashion Museum Bath, England

The Fashion Museum Bath holds a world-class collection of over 100,000 objects of contemporary and historic dress dating back to the 16th century.

LACMA Museum Website

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Costume & Textiles Collection

The collection spans works from pre-Columbian textiles to contemporary couture and includes over 35,000 objects representing more than 100 cultures and over 2,000 years of dress and human creativity in the textile arts,

McCord Museum Website

McCord Museum, Montreal, Canada

More then 20,000 objects (980 online) of clothing and accessories belonging to Canadian men, women and children, covering three centuries; garments from Montreal designers, manufacturers and retailers; quilts, coverlets and other hand-made domestic textiles.

Palais Galliera Museum, Paris, France

Palais Galliera Museum, Paris, France

Opened in 1977 the museums 70,000 items are organized in 7 different departments: 18th Century Dress, 19th Century Costumes, Fashion of the 20th Century, Haute Couture, Contemporary, Undergarments and Accessories.

Victoria and Albert Museum

Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

The collection covers fashionable dress from the 17th century to the present day, with the emphasis on progressive and influential designs from the major fashion centers of Europe.

Kent State University Museum

Kent State University Museum, Ohio

The Kent State Museum contains important collections of fashion and decorative arts from the 18th century to the present. Its eight galleries feature changing exhibitions of work by many of the world's great artists and designers.

Touring other museums of fashion

Have a question or comment about these guides? Contact: libraryreference@fitnyc.edu