Research guides: ART: Art History: ART 176: Visual History of Fashion

Research essay – Key requirements

Bibliography of at least 5 references.
List of Images of at least 3 artifacts of strong provenance (from a library or museum database).
The sources should come from the following:
- reference sources (encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, guides, etc.)
- scholarly journal articles
- books or book chapters
- newspapers
- quality websites (universities, museums, galleries, archives, online exhibits, catalogues, etc.)

Reference resources & images

Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms This link opens in a new window
In Oxford Art Online.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
An archive of over 200 academic journals in the fields of Arts and Humanities. Often this is the only place to find these journals. Quality resource for historical research. Includes ARTstor content as of July 2024.
Oxford's Grove Art Online This link opens in a new window
Grove Art features entries on artists, architects, craftsmen, patrons, movements, locations, and periods.

Design & fashion collections

Asian Fashion Archive
The Asian Fashion Archive is a digital resource project highlighting Asian fashion, culture, and history.
Bata Shoe Museum (Toronto)
"The Bata Shoe Museum (BSM) regularly displays over a thousand shoes and related artifacts, chosen from a collection of over 13,000 objects, in architect Raymond Moriyama’s iconic, award-winning building. The BSM celebrates the style, development and function of footwear across four impressive galleries, with displays ranging from Chinese bound-foot shoes and ancient Egyptian sandals to chestnut-crushing clogs and glamorous platforms. Over 4,500 years of history are reflected in our permanent exhibition..." The online exhibitions section provides textual information and images on a variety of topics.
China National Silk Museum
China National Silk Museum is a non-profit permanent institution open to the public for the collection, protection, research, display, inheritance and innovation of textiles, which starts with Chinese silk but further expands to costume studies.
Cooper Hewitt - Smithsonian Design Museum
"This website represents Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum’s diverse collection, spanning thirty centuries of historic and contemporary design, including the world's coolest office, a large snail shell, snakes, a dragon and four bearded men, a cone propped up on a bench, a pair of colorful hands, a mysterious tv and a perpetual calendar ."
Cornell Fashion & Textile Collection
The Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection (CF+TC), includes nearly 9,000 items of apparel, accessories and flat textiles dating from the eighteenth century to present, including substantial collections of functional clothing, technical textiles, and ethnographic costume.
The Costume Institute (Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York)
"The Costume Institute's collection of more than thirty-three thousand objects represents seven centuries of fashionable dress and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present." There are over 42,000 high resolution images on the site.
Design Museum
“The museum offers an introduction to the history of contemporary design with free display Designer Maker User, and opportunities to explore the present and future of design through a programme of temporary exhibitions and pop-ups.”
Gucci Garden Galleria
"The Gucci Garden Galleria in Piazza della Signoria, Florence, is filled with history, objects, anecdotes and geographies. A series of rooms unfold from a story that begins in 1921 to today," and include displays of its handbags and couture gowns, art and other related exhibits.
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.
Mansoojat Foundation Museum of Saudi Arabian Costume Online Costumes Archive
The Mansoojat Foundation's mission is to revive and preserve the traditional ethnic designs and costumes of the various regions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; to promote and conduct academic research important for the understanding of the history and culture of the region, and to raise public awareness for the appreciation of this unique heritage.
McCord Stewart Museum: Dress, Fashion & Textiles
The Dress, Fashion and Textiles collection comprises more than 27,000 garments and accessories from the past three centuries, made or worn primarily in Montreal. The collection covers all aspects of women’s, men’s and children’s fashionable dress of the 19th and 20th centuries, including indoor and outdoor garments, underclothing, sports attire, everyday clothing, and dress for special occasions such as weddings and christenings.
Musée Christian Dior
"The Christian Dior Museum is the only “Musée de France” dedicated to a couturier. Since 2010, in addition to an annual thematic exhibition, it organizes an autumn-winter exhibition, “Une maison, des collections”, showing its permanent collections and its most recent acquisitions." You can view images of its collections at this site: https://collections.musees-normandie.fr/search/N-EXPLORE-d2f022f0-a9b8-4d61-98c0-12e74ed12ae0
Musée des Beaux-arts et de la Dentelle
The Museum of Fine Arts and Lace is "Musée de France" certified and is steeped in over 150 years of history. The institution was founded to house a number of collections, one of which is lace (la dentelle). " Entirely handmade with a needle and cotton or linen thread, Alençon Lace requires an exceptional lace-making technique."
Musée Yves Saint Laurent (Paris)
"The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will focus on both the couturier’s creative genius and the process of designing a haute couture collection. Beyond its monographic ambitions, the museum seeks to address the history of the twentieth century and the haute couture traditions that accompanied a way of life that no longer exists."
Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), New York
The Museum at FIT, accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, is one of a select group of specialized fashion museums, including the Musée de la Mode, the Mode Museum, and the Museo de la Moda. The museum's permanent collection encompasses some 50,000 garments and accessories from the 18th century to the present. Important designers such as Adrian, Balenciaga, Chanel, and Dior are represented. The collecting policy of the museum focuses on aesthetically and historically significant directional clothing, accessories, textiles and visual materials, with emphasis on contemporary avant-garde fashion.
Museum of Ethnic Costumes, Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology Beijing, China
Ethnic Costume Museum of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT), established with the approval of Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage, is the first museum specializing in ethnic costumes in China. The museum has a collection of over 10,000 pieces of costume, accessories, fabric, wax printing, and embroidery.
Victoria and Albert Museum
"V&A Images is a high quality, versatile picture agency. Our ever-expanding image collection includes almost everything imaginable in the fine and decorative arts."
more...less...
"The V&A is the world’s leading museum of art and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.3 million objects that span over 5,000 years of human creativity. The Museum holds many of the UK's national collections and houses some of the greatest resources for the study of architecture, furniture, fashion, textiles, photography, sculpture, painting, jewellery, glass, ceramics, book arts, Asian art and design, theatre and performance."

Design & fashion exhibits

George Washington University Museum, "Indian Textiles: 1,000 Years of Art and Design" exhibit
Featuring masterworks from The Textile Museum Collection and the private collection of Karun Thakar, this major exhibition and accompanying publication showcased court weavings, folk embroideries and other fabrics from the eighth through the early 20th centuries.
Royal Ontario Museum (ROM), The Cloth that Changed the World: India's Painted and Printed Cottons" exhibit
Exploring the fascinating stories behind the making and trade of these glorious pieces past and present, The Cloth that Changed the World considers India’s textile innovations and their influences on fashion, trade and industry around the world in places as far as Cairo, Japan, Sumatra, London, and Ottawa. Discover how through trade-routes, encounters, and exchange, these cloths connected cultures, inspired imitation and, quite literally, changed the world. Experience how India’s designers and makers today are innovating for new times and audiences.
Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, "Native Fashion Now" exhibit
From vibrant street clothing to exquisite haute couture, Native Fashion Now celebrates the visual range, creative expression, and political nuance of Native American fashion. Nearly 70 works spanning the last 50 years explore the vitality of Native fashion designers and artists from pioneering Native style-makers to maverick designers making their mark in today's world of fashion.
“Urban Regalia” Collection by Sugiit Lukxs (Yolonda Skelton)
University of Victoria’s Legacy Gallery Exhibit “Urban Regalia”. Exhibition showcases the high fashion designs by contemporary Gitxsan couturier Sugiit Lukxs (Yolonda Skelton).
Wearing Our Identity – The First Peoples Collection
Wearing our Identity – The First Peoples Collection invites the public to discover the importance of clothing in the development, preservation and communication of the social, cultural, political and spiritual identities of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis in Canada.

Academic resources at the Camosun Library

Camosun library subscribes to a number of databases containing collections of scholarly articles, book chapters, and other resources related to art and art history topics. Use the databases below to find scholarly and peer-reviewed articles and book chapters.

Academic Search Complete This link opens in a new window
All topics, academic focus, some Canadian content.
ACLS Humanities ebooks This link opens in a new window
A humanities ebook collection of over 1,500 open access titles. Topics covered: history (African, American, Asian, etc.), literary criticism, religion and more.
Art & Architecture Source (formerly Art Source) This link opens in a new window
This database covers a broad range of related subjects from fine, decorative and commercial art, to various areas of architecture and architectural design. Includes full-text articles to over 650 journals.
Humanities Abstracts This link opens in a new window
History, literature, philosophy articles.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
An archive of over 200 academic journals in the fields of Arts and Humanities. Often this is the only place to find these journals. Quality resource for historical research. Includes ARTstor content as of July 2024.
Social Sciences Full Text This link opens in a new window
All social science topics (anthropology, sociology, political science, psychology, criminology articles); mainly journals, some magazines.

To cast your research net wider, start by using the Single Search search tool. Use the advanced search option to add and experiment with keywords. Refine your search using the publication date, source type, and subject tools located on the left hand side of your search results.

News resources at the Camosun Library

Newspaper articles, both past and present, can provide quality context for your research. News resources can provide evidence of how different groups of people interpreted or described various ideas and events at different points in time.

Canadian Business & Current Affairs (CBCA Complete) + Canadian Major Dailies (Combined search) This link opens in a new window
Cross search these two major Canadian sources to discover magazine, journal and newspaper articles. See also the individual links in Databases A-Z to search them individually.
Proquest Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
Free online access to 126 years of B.C.’s oldest and most respected newspapers: the Vancouver Sun (1912-2010), the Times-Colonist (1884-2010) and The Province (1894-2010).

ART: Art History

About the ART 176 resource guide

Dictionaries

Finding fashion in the library

Chicago Style Citation

Accessing the UVic Libraries

Interlibrary Loans (ILLs)

Camosun Single Search