Resources in Art and Architecture on the Web

Old website with information about the history of quilting.

Wonderful animated version of the 11th century embroidery.

Online exhibition with biographical information about designers, from the National Gallery of Australia.

Khangas are rectangular printed cotton fabrics that have been worn by women in East Africa since the 19th century. Available through JSTOR.

Website for museum in Toronto.

From the New York Public Library.

Finding aid from the Met Museum's Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library.

Cashin's personal archive documenting her design career. From UCLA.

Digitized books on dyes and dyeing from the Mary Ann Beinecke Decorative Art Collection of the Clark Art Institute.

Digitized books on embroidery from the Mary Ann Beinecke Decorative Art Collection of the Clark Art Institute.

Digitized books on needlework from the Mary Ann Beinecke Decorative Art Collection of the Clark Art Institute.

Digitized books on weaving from the Mary Ann Beinecke Decorative Art Collection of the Clark Art Institute.

Finding aid from the Met Museum's Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library.

Fifty-two drawings illustrating small gold accessories. From Boston Athenaeum.

Plates from 1919 production of Casanova. From Minneapolis College of Art and Design through JSTOR.

The textiles collection of the museum.

Web resources collected by the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Website for the Metropolitan Museum of Art Library with links and digital collections.

Digitized catalogs on the Internet Archive.

Caribbean molas in Dloc, the Digital Library of the Caribbean.

Donald Brothers was famous for producing high quality furnishing fabrics. From Heriot Watt University via JSTOR.

Collections from the New York Public Library.

Old website with information about Elizabethan costume.

Old website with descriptions of fashions through history, including bibliographies.

Historical and contemporary costume from more than 30 European collections.

Technical and experimental samples created by students taking the Embroidery course in the Art Department at Goldsmiths College under Constance Howard during the 1960s. From JSTOR.

Men's and women's fashions of the 19th and 20th centuries.

"Over 6,200 hand-colored, finely detailed fashion illustrations produced between 1780 and 1880 for British and American fashion magazines." From Los Angeles Public Library.

Website with biographical information.

"The world of fashion since 1995."

Finding aid from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Collection of mainly 19th and early 20th century fashion plates. From the University of Washington Libraries.

Collection from the Library of Congress.

Covers all kinds of costume.

3-d models of girls' fashion across time and cultures. Note conditions of CC license.

Collection of historical and contemporary clothing and accessories illustrating important trends in the past two hundred and eighty years of fashion history. From Houston Community College via JSTOR.

Digitized collections from the University of Rhode Island.

Old website with text and images from the book of ca. 1861-1880.

Online exhibition from the Royal Collection Trust.

Most of the objects have been donated by people from New Hampshire. From University of New Hampshire Library.

From Dartmouth Library Collections.

18th and 19th century embroidery patterns and fashion plates from the Lady's Magazine. From Cardiff University via JSTOR.

Fashion sketches from 1913-1923. From UCLA.

Contains papers, photographs, costumes and ephemera belonging to Marjorie Whitney Prass, mainly theatrical and dances costumes. From University of Chicago.

Search interface to the collections.

"A are collection of original materials on the theatre comprising over 5000 items from more than 150 productions in England and the United States. These materials include costume and set designs, sketches, notes, photographs, prop lists, storyboards, and swatches of fabric." From the University of Illinois Library.

Google Arts & Culture site for the Madrid museum.

"The Museum cares for one of the nation's foremost collections of men's, women's, and children's garments and accessories."

A guide to digitized 19th century periodicals available to the public, maintained by Marist College Library.

Finding aid from the Met Museum's Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library.

Collection of dolls and accessories fond in an 1839 volume of the "New York Mirror." From the University of Chicago.

Examples of paisley textiles from Heriot-Watt University via JSTOR.

"Painted by an unidentified artist, these opera characters are gathered from literature, military history, and myth." (ca. 1900)

Collection of hand-drawn textile designs from the Northampton Textile Company. Collection at Thomas Jefferson University via JSTOR.

From the Library of Congress.

Digitized costume and set designs by Burnside who staged over 200 shows in the U.S.

International folk costume postcards dating from the late 19th to mid-20th century, available through JSTOR.

Compiled from the Costume folders in the RISD Fleet Library Picture Collection, available through JSTOR.

Includes clothing, accessories, and related items from past and present. From Indiana University Libraries.

Fabulous digitized collection of fashion art, photography, patterns, and more.

Archive of clothing and accessories of women in the United States from 1800 to the present and from a range of social classes. Available via JSTOR.

Old website all about shoes.

Works created 1998-2007. From UCLA.

Finding Aid from the Met Museum's Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library.

Annotated bibliography of sources for embroidery history.

Subscription database of over 40,000 textiles. One must pay a membership fee to access the collection.

Finding aid from the Museum of Modern Art.

Over 3500 images available through JSTOR.

Includes a wide variety of material related to the textile industry in the US. Available via JSTOR.

Includes over 330 textile-printing blocks likely created in the mid to late 19th century into the early 20th century. These blocks, created by hand from wood and metal, were used to create patterns on cloth either through printing or resist dyeing. Available via JSTOR.

Finding aid from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Comprises over 200 garments designed by Cashin between 1960 and 1980. Available through JSTOR.

"This digital collection includes millinery, dressmaking, clothing and costume books from the UW-Madison collections. These books from the first half of the 20th century (1907 – 1940's) include the history of clothing, styles of dress, fashion drawing, and design and construction of hats, clothing and costumes."

"Collection of machine-made commemorative textiles from various African countries. This collection provides researchers access to digitized fabrics that are printed with images and text documenting events and individuals of historical, political, religious, economic, educational, and sociological significance to African societies."

"The Object Collection has over 4,000 objects. In addition to teaching samples, there are also items of domestic embroidery, print, and weave, and textiles using other forms of construction and embellishment."

"The Pockets of History collection contains new digital photographs of over three hundred tie-on pockets of the 1700 and 1800s, with overviews and close-ups of details."

"Rutt's library of books, journals, magazines, patterns and cuttings specifically on knitting is held at Winchester School of Art Library. "

"The collection consists of over 3,000 artefacts. Woven textiles range from an important collection of Coptic textiles from 800-1000 AD through to British woollen cloths, Kashmir shawls, African strip weaving and Scandinavian furnishing fabrics from 1950 to 1990."

"The London College of Fashion College Archive is a collection of historical materials which chronicle the history of the College from its origins as two early needle trade schools up until the 1970's. This online collection contains images of black-and-white and sepia photographs from the Archive depicting a wide range of subjects taught at the schools over the years."

"The shoe collection, of around 650 items, was built up by Cordwainers College as a teaching aid and it consists mainly of women's shoes with some men's and a few children's, the majority being British "fashion" footwear with some orthopaedic, some prize and exhibition work, lasts and shoemaker's tools and some ethnic footwear." Covers 1780-1990s.

"The archive consists of eight volumes of editorial publicity cuttings, dating from 1939 to 1952, along with three volumes of advertising and point of sale product photographs, assorted loose photographs and other ephemera."

The collection "numbers some 800 dating from the 1920s to the present day."

Promotional photographs and press releases. Collection of over 4000 images.

"Includes three sketch books: Sketch Book of 1960-1961, Sketch Book of 1962 and 1963, and Victor Stiebel Ground Floor Collections 1961-1963."

"The West Yorkshire Textile Heritage Project is a partnership formed by Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield museums to develop a unified approach to presenting the rich history of textiles in West Yorkshire."

"The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection provides unique open online access to images of 500 of the designer's iconic garments, for use in learning, teaching, and research."

From the New York Public Library.

Interface to the fashion collections of the museum.

Includes information about designers, materials, types of clothing, and more.

Comprehensive collection of digitized materials from the Theatre Institute in Prague.

Finding aid from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Google Arts & Culture site.

From the New York Public Library.

From the University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Libraries.

Dramatic costume design from University of Wisconsin -- Milwaukee Libraries.

Online exhibition from the National Museum of American History. "War laces" from Belgium.