Fashion Design

Using Artstor

The CCA Libraries subscribe to Artstor, the premier image database for art and design research. It contains over two million high-resolution images contributed by museums, archives, universities, and libraries. Every image has corresponding data about the creator, materials used, and location of the original.

To download images, individual users need to create a free Artstor account. Our institutional subscription allows CCA faculty, students, and staff to use Artstor images (with proper attribution) for educational purposes such as research papers, presentations, and lectures. 

Artstor Introductory Tutorial

Worchester Corset Company, 1893 / House of Worth, Evening Dress, 1895 / John Singer Sargent, Portrait of Madame X, 1883 (Images accessed via the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Fashion and Costume Image Resources

• All Sewn Up: Millinery, Dressmaking, Clothing and Costume: Millinery, dressmaking, clothing and costume books from 1907 – 1940s
• Andre Studios 1930-1941: Drawings of fashions by Chanel, Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, Lelong and Patou from between the two World Wars.
• Casey Fashion Plates Collection at LAPL: Over 6,200 hand-colored, finely detailed fashion illustrations produced between 1780 and 1880 for British and American fashion magazines.
• LA County Museum of Art Costume & Textiles: LACMA's online collection - Fashion 1900-2000
• Drexel Historic Costume Collection: 3D photographs of garments searchable by decade, designer and other criteria
• Historical Children's Clothing Collection: Wisconsin Historical Society's image resource
• Smithsonian Digital Collections on Fashion and Clothing
• The Vinkhuijzen Collection of Military Costume Illustration
• University of Washington Fashion Plate Collection: Historical fashion illustrations digitized from original sources. Browse by period: Empire, Georgian, Regency, Romantic, Victorian, Late Victorian, Edwardian.
• The Myrtle Tyrrell Kirby Fashion Plate Collection (Claremont Libraries Digital Collection): The Collection comprises 650 images of nineteenth-century fashion plates from the Macpherson Collection of the Ella Strong Denison Library at Scripps College. In addition to the Myrtle Tyrrell Kirby collection, the digital collection includes 65 fashion plates donated to the Denison Library by Elliot E. Lawrence.

• Fashion Plates Digital Collection (Iowa State University Library): The Collection (1776-2003) contains plates of general fashion dating back to the 18th century and continuing through the 20th century.
• Cora Ginsberg Gallery: For over 40 years, the Cora Ginsberg Gallery has specialized in museum quality antique costume of the 18th and 19th centuries and in European embroideries, silks, and printed textiles of the 17th - 20th centuries. Browse their site for an ever-rotating selection of textiles and costumes.

• The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Search over 30,000 images from the collections of the Costume Institute and the Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection . You can direct your search by designer, material, geographic location, or era.

• Kyoto Costume Institute: Digital Archives: Presents image and text for approximately 200 objects from the KCI collection, arranged in chronological order.

• Museum of Fine Arts Textiles and Fashion Arts Collection Highlights: Explore highlights from the MFA Boston's David & Roberta Logie Department of Textile & Fashion Arts.

• Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology Online Collections: Search the collection or browse by era.

• The New York Public Library's Dress and Fashion: Design and Manufacture Collection: This digital collection contains "several rare and unusual published resources of interest to students of western dress and fashion from the 19th to the early 20th-century. Includes historical surveys as well as manufacturers' booklets and sample swatch catalogs."

• Victoria and Albert Museum Fashion Guide: Images and information from the V&A’s Fashion collection. Key areas include rare 17th-century gowns, 18th-century ‘mantua’ dresses, 1930s eveningwear, 1960s daywear, and post-war couture.
• VADS / online resource for visual arts: Visual art collections comprising over 100,000 images from institutional sources contributed for use in learning, teaching and research. Includes art, design, architecture, decorative art, fashion. UK-based.

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art Image Resources
• The Getty Museum Open Content Program
• The Victoria and Albert Museum

Dress. Ji Eon Kang (American, born 1973), spring/summer 1997, silk, metal. Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Richard Martin.

The Victoria and Albert Museum

Alexander McQueen Savage Beauty

The V&A is delighted to announce that it will present Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty in London in spring 2015. The first and largest retrospective of the late designer’s work to be presented in Europe.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire

This exhibition explores the aesthetic development of mourning fashions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Women in Black: Fashioning Mourning in the Nineteenth Century

Watch this "Friday Focus" lecture on Mourning Attire.

The following websites will help you with your research:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Costume Institute

Search the Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-five thousand costumes and accessories represents five continents and seven centuries of fashionable dress, regional costumes, and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present.

Smarthistory - www.smarthistory.org

An interactive art history website with lectures, video, and images.

Getty Museum - www.getty.edu

The Getty Museum website providing access to the research institute, Getty virtual library, open content program, and current exhibitions.

Metropolitan Museum - www.metmuseum.org

The Metropolitan Museum website with information on exhibitions, collections, and image resources.

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History - http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/

This is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art from around the world, as illustrated by the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. 

National Museum of American History - Costume Collection - http://amhistory.si.edu/costume/

The Costume Collection at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, contains over 30,000 garments and accessories representing the changing appearance of Americans from the 17th century to the present. 

Victoria & Albert Museum - Fashion Collection - http://www.vam.ac.uk/page/f/fashion/

The V&A’s Fashion collection is the largest and most comprehensive collection of dress in the world.