INTERNET RESOURCES
GladRags.com
Fashion and costume
by Monica Fusich
wealth of information on fashion and cos This selected list of Internet sites covers tume resources exists on the Internet. many aspects of fashion and costume his ABoth the contemporary nature of fashion as tory that will be of interest to both the seri well as the historical aspect of costume are ous scholar and those interested in fashion extremely well served by the visual and for fun. hypertext medium of the Internet. The fashion industry and fashion devo FASHION tees have created sites that provide access to Meta Sites runway shows, designers, models, trade in • Angel of Fashion. An evaluative di formation, and current events. Costume his rectory of fashion sites that are awarded the torians have designed sites that can be used “angel of fashion” for in to research costumes, locate visuals, and novation and creativity. document the creation of accurate historical The site links to alterna garments. tive fashion sites, e- Richard Martin, curator of the Costume zines, designers, model Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ing, and much more. notes in his introduction to Contemporary Starting at this site gives Fashion, “We could not avoid fashion today an excellent overview of if we tried: fashion constitutes the pervasive the richness of fashion and persuasive culture of our time.”1 information available. The culture of fashion, costume, and the Created by Rodney Dunetz. Access: http:// Internet has successfully converged to offer www. fashionangel. com/angel. html. unique, innovative, and informative Web • FashionWorld.net. An excellent and sites. Individuals first used the Internet as a comprehensive index of international fash vehicle for disseminating opinions and im ion sites. This site links to sites of interest to ages on fashion and costume and created fashion retailers, manufacturers, shoppers, personal homepages on topics such as punk and those just interested in fashion. Provides style, makeup, and designers. a search engine of fashion sites. Access: http:// The fashion industry and professional or cgi.softlantis.com/fashionworld/cgi-bin/ ganizations then saw the value of the Internet fwsetup.exe. as an advertising and informational medium • FashionNet. This site sponsors live chat and began to develop commercial sites. Cur and bulletin boards as well as job listings, a rently, serious researchers and those inter fashion-specific search engine, and links to ested in cutting-edge fashion trends will be related beauty and modeling sites. Published able to locate information on the Internet. by Triple International, an online publisher
About the author
Monica Fusich is reference librarian a t California State University, Fresno, e-mail: [email protected]
C&RL News ■ April 1999/287 specializing in fashion. Access: http://www. as retailers, manufacturers, and style-related fashion.net/ journalists. Access: http://www.fbia.com/ • World Fashion Sites. This site links to index.html. designers, magazines, fashion schools, col • Fashion Windows: The Internet’s lections, textiles, models, and fashion muse Database on Fashion Designers, Visual ums. Produced by the Samsung Fashion In Merchandising, and Mannequins. This stitute. Access: http://www.sfi.co.kr/wfsites/ site was created by a Dallas-based freelance tsites-gnr.html. visual merchandiser and is divided into four • Fashionlndia. Fashionlndia is a com main areas: mannequins, visual merchandis prehensive site including information on ing, windows, and fashion designers. Each designers, boutiques, reviews, models, cho section has a selection of articles on various reographers, fashion professionals, and other topics such as selecting a mannequin or po fashion-related information. Includes a glos sitioning a mannequin. Of special interest is sary and excellent article on the history of the windows section, which include examples fashion in India. A ccess: http://www. of successful window displays. This site also fashionindia.net/. includes a discussion forum and newsletter that can be subscribed to via e-mail. Access: Images http://www.fashionwindows.com/ • FirstVIEW: Collections Online. This default.asp. is the premiere Internet publication for fash • TIMS: The Textile Industry’s Busi ion show photographs from both the haute ness Center. Provides access, on a mem couture and ready-to-wear collections shown bership basis, to textile and apparel industry in Paris, New York, Milan, and London. The companies. Services include company and product searches, a client show case, classified ads, employment listings, trade shows listings, and links to further resources. Provided most current shows are available only by by Unicate Inc., a company working with expensive subscription. More reasonable the textile, apparel, and fashion industries. hourly rates are available one month after Access: http://www.unicate.com/. the collections are made available to regular • Virtual Garment Center. The mission subscribers. FirstVIEW includes between 60 of this site is “to provide a virtual commu and 200 photographs of each designer’s show nity dedicated to servicing the apparel in and images of the older shows (1995-98) are dustry by providing information and free. For example, 90 images of Richard interactivity.” This site has two sections: mar Tyler’s Spring 1998 ready-to-wear collection kets where companies can list garments or are available. Until firstView came online, the textiles needed and a searchable database of most comprehensive image collection of run companies such as manufacturers, jobbers, way shows was the quarterly microfiche set, supplies, or retailers. Access: http://www. Fashion Update. Includes an e-mail notifica garment.com. tion service of new collections available for • Pret a Porter. This site provides infor viewing. Access: http://www.firstview.com/ mation on an international trade show for home.html. retail buyers and sellers of ready-to-wear and accessories. This site is divided into 15 “sec Industry information tors” representing the different areas of re • Apparel.net: The Online Guide for tail such as professional or sportswear. Buy the Apparel Industry. This comprehensive ers can use this site in preparation for travel clearinghouse of links to over 2,000 apparel ling to Paris for the live event. Access: http:// resources includes information on trade www.pretparis.com/. events, organizations, statistics, and news. • Fashionweb. This site focuses on fash Access: http://www.apparel.net/. ion in the United Kingdom and provides • Fashion Beauty Internet Associa chatrooms, job listings, showrooms, and links tion. An Internet association and virtual fo to additional resources. An interesting aspect rum for fashion and beauty businesses such of the showroom section is Fashion-I, a timed
288 / C&RL News ■ A p ril 1999 slide show of current fashion trends. Access: manufacturing management. Access: http:// http://www2.fashionweb.co.uk/fashionweb/. www.fidm.com/. • Parsons School of Design. This fa Designers mous school of design also offers a degree Yahoo has an excellent list of links to de in fashion design. Parson graduates include signer homepages. Access: http://dir.yahoo. such designers as Donna Karan, Louis com/Arts/Design_Arts/Fashion/Designers/. Dell’Olio, and James Mischka. Access: http:// Many of the e-zines discussed in a later sec www. parsons.edu. tion will also provide links to designer infor • London College of Fashion. Offers mation. degree programs in fashion promotion and • 7th On Sixth. This hybrid site provides management and fashion design and tech access to cutting-edge men and women’s de nology. Access: http://www.lcf.linst.ac.uk/ signers such as Girlsrule, Hang Feng, Patrick mainmenu.htm. Robinson, Vera Wang, and Xuly Bet. A brief biography is provided for each designer as E-Zines well as a link to a homepage, if available. A Yahoo has an excellent index of links to fash calendar of both physical and virtual fashion ion magazines. Access: http://dir.yahoo.com/ shows is provided. The digital photographs Arts/Design_Arts/Fashion/News_and_Media/ are by Imagelnfo and the Internet shows are Magazines/. In addition to print magazines Webcast by the Globix Streaming Media with a Web supplement, the fashion indus Group and require video software to be ac try has excelled in producing innovative, cessed. Access: http://www.7thonsixth.com/ high-quality, and contemporary e-zines. A html/home.html. sample list of titles follows. • Fashion Click: The Online Fashion Schools and Style Magazine. Covers fashion and col Yahoo offers a partial list of programs offering lections as well as standard fashion maga degrees in fashion design. Access: http:// zine fare. In addition to the current issue, dir.yahoo.com/Arts/Design_Arts/Fashion/ maintains highlights of past issues. Access: Education/Schools/. Some noted schools fol http://www.fashionclick.com/. low. • Fashion Planet. This online magazine • Fashion Institute of Technology includes daily updated news items relating (FIT). For over 50 years FIT has offered de to the fashion industry. Each issue includes grees for those interested in careers in the feature articles and columns on such topics apparel industry. In addition, FIT currently as accessories, beauty, travel, and the arts. offers AA and BA degrees in textile and sur An interesting feature is “Windows on New face design, restoration, fashion merchandis York,” which is a map of 5Ih, Madison, and ing management, and much more. Access: 57th Street, with images of and links to the http://www.fitnyc.suny.edu. various stores located in this area. Access: • Fashion Institute of Design and Mer http://www.fashion-planet.com/. chandising. This California private college • Fashion Icon. One of the first fashion offers degrees in fashion design, fashion mer e-zines, created by Mila Radulovic, a fashion chandise marketing, textile design, cosmet and beauty consultant. It offers analysis and ics and fragrance merchandising, and apparel opinion about current fashion trends. Access: http://www.fashion-icon.com/. • Fashion Navigator. Includes articles on beauty, collections, films, culture, and Authors sought music in English and German. Access: http:/ /www.fashion.at. If you’d like to submit a topic for the • The Look Online. Sponsored by “Internet Resources” column, please send Smashbox Cosmetics, provides fashion indus your topic and a brief description of your try information for visitors and subscribers. expertise by May 21 to Mary Ellen Davis, Access: http://www.lookonline.com/. editor-in-chief, at [email protected]. • Lumiere. Begun in 1995, Lumiere pro vides in-depth and up-to-the-minute infor
C&RL News ■ April 1999 / 289 mation on fashion, beauty, and contempo Costume Manifesto, a how-to-manual for cos rary culture. Lumiere provides a free, daily tume designers, written by the creator of e-mail notification service of the most cur the Web site. Access to a newsletter and dis rent fashion news. Access: http://www. cussion forum is also provided. Created by lumiere.com/. Tara Maginnis, costume designer for The • Fashion Live. Produced by World Me atre UAF, the Theatre Department of the Uni dia, provides access to fashion trends in versity of Alaska Fairbanks. Access: http:// Paris, Milan, and London in both English www.costumes.org/. and French. Includes catwalk coverage, a • The Costume Page: Costuming Re designer database, and an e-mail updat sources Online. This well-developed site, ing service. Access: http://www.worldmedia. created by Julie Zetterberg, indexes over fr/fashion/. 2,000 costume and costume-related links such • Hypermode. A product of Spiral Me as museums and exhibits, costume history, dia Inc., includes articles on current trends ethnic and folk costume, theatrical costume, in fashion and a message board. Access http:// making and wearing costumes, and related www.hypermode.com. sites. A ccess: http://members.aol.com/ nebula5/costume.html. Newsgroups, mail lists, chatrooms • The Costume Site. An excellent site, Tile.net (Access: http://tile.net/lists/) and Vivian created by Lauren Podolak, an amateur cos Neou ’s List o f Lists (Access: http://catalog.com/ tumer, provides access to costume, ethnic, vivian/interest-group- search.html) provide information on several fashion discussion groups. The following lists would be useful to those interested in fashion: and theatrical images, museums and history, • alt.gothic.fashion. Provides discussion organizations, and links to miscellaneous sites of gothic fashions and styles. such as those covering corsets and under • alt.fashion. Provides discussion of any pinnings. This site is especially strong in its thing to do with fashion and makeup. access to ethnic costume. Access: http:// • fashionbiz. Provides discussion of the www.milieux.com/costume/. fashion industry. • The Costume Gallery. Provides over 400 links to costume designers, goods and COSTUME services, costume history, and recreational Meta sites sites such as an online costume ball and The following sites are all labors of love, online costume postcards. Created by Penny created by individuals with a strong interest E. Dunlap Ladnier. Access: http://www. in costume history. costumegallery.com/. • www.costumes.org. This compre • The Costume Page. Produced by the hensive and excellent site provides access University of British Columbia Library, this to textual information, historical images from site links to a small list of costume-related classic costume texts, and includes a timeline libraries, mail lists, Usenet groups, and exhi of costume history. Chronological links to bitions. Access: http://www.library.ubc.ca/ related costume sites are provided as well finearts/COSTUME.html. as links to costume museums, military cos tumes, masks and makeup, fabric dyeing, Images and much more. Especially useful is the Most of the sites mentioned above link to images and textual information. The following sites focus on vi sual information. • The Regency Fashion Page. This site, created by Cathy Decker, links to three
290 / C&RL News ■ April 1999 pages: the Real Regency Clothing Page, Re ( “Web form s” continued from page 272) gency Fashion Plates, and the Men’s Page, Forms can be used in other ways to which show costume images from fashion enhance library services in general. For journals and plates and photographs of ac example, libraries can provide access to tual regency garments. A ccess: http:// commonly used library forms, such as in locutus.ucr.edu/~cathy/reg3. html. terlibrary loan requests, requests to put • The History of Costume. C. Otis library materials on reserve, or requests Sweezey reproduces the plates in the “His for extended reference assistance. tory of Costume” or “Zur Geschichte der As technology becomes more sophisti Kostume,” which was printed from 1871 to cated, libraries must use creative and pro 1880 in Munich. These plates reproduce 500 active methods to maintain viability. A ref costume designs from antiquity to the end of erence Web form is one way libraries can the 19th century. Access, http://www.siue.edu/ expand their educational and service roles COSTUMES/history.html. and stay at the forefront of a changing • Godey’s Lady’s Book. There are sev world. eral sites that are in the process of providing access to this 19th-century periodical. This im Sources for building a Web form portant journal included fashion plates as well • Beverly K. Duval. “Tables and feed as poems, fiction, and advice articles. Two back forms in Web pages.” Library Soft locations for this journal are the University ware Review 15 (1996): 31-37. Part of the of Vermont (Access: http://www.uvm.edu/ “Microcomputer Applications in the Li ~hag/godey/index.html) and the University brary” column looks at the design and of Rochester (Access: http://www.history. HTML coding for tables and feedback rochester. edu/godeys/). forms. • J. Honeycutt, and Mark R. Brown. Us Associations and organizations ing HTML 3 .2. 3rd ed. Indianapolis: Que, • Costume Society of America. Offers Inc., 1997. This comprehensive reference information on membership, symposia, ex book for HTML 3.2 Web page creation in hibitions, and scholarships and awards. Ac cludes chapters on creating online forms. cess: http://www.costumesocietyamerica. • WebReference.com. A ccess: http:// com/. www.webreference.com/programming/ • The Costume Society (Great forms.html. This page gives links to some Britain). Access: http://www.Bath.uk.com/ excellent sites for creating forms on the CostumeSociety/. Web. ■ • International Costumer’s Guild. Pro vides information on this worldwide organi Web forms to check out zation of costume professionals and amateurs. Here are some well-designed Web refer Access: http://www.costume.org. ence forms we recommend looking at: Newsgroups, mail lists, chatrooms • Central Michigan University’s Ask a Librarian Web form. Access: http://www. • [email protected]. Fo lib.cmich.edu/departments/reference/ cuses on the design, motivation, and execu askref.htm. tion of fantasy clothing and costume. Sub • Ask a Librarian at the Eden-Webster scribe: [email protected]. com. Library at Webster University and Eden Theological Seminary. Access: http:// • H-Costume. Focuses on how to accu library.websteruniv.edu/askalibn.html. rately recreate historical costumes. Subscribe: • College of Charleston Library Ask a [email protected]. Librarian form. Access: http://www.cofc. • Vintage. Vintage clothing discussion list. edu/~whitt/question.html. Subscribe: [email protected]. • Ask Zach at the Zach S. Henderson Note Library of Georgia Southern University. Access: http://www2.gasou.edu/library/ 1. Richard Martin. Contemporary Fashion form.html. (New York: St. James Press, 1995): vii. ■
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