Step into the first comprehensive online collection dedicated to the study of global dress and costume history, design, and making.

Whether you’re a student or researcher of dress history, film and theatre costume, costume design and construction, you’ll find a truly exceptional breadth of material to support your work.

Many of the collection’s essential resources are available digitally here for the first time.

Take advantage of cross-searchable access to primary source material, authoritative scholarly books and reference works, practical costume-making guides, exclusive overview articles, and garment study videos.

From works by legendary authors such as Norah Waugh to the exclusive Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design, get to grips with dress and costume across continents, cultures and throughout history, using materials that set the standard – all in one place.

Content highlights

Users can explore:

• 80+ authoritative book titles to enrich research - both scholarly dress history titles and books from the Focal Press Costume Topics series, exploring practical costume-making techniques.
• Norah Waugh’s classic works Cut of Men’s Clothes and Cut of Women’s Clothes exclusively in digital format for the first time.
• Three reference titles from the classic ‘Fashions In’ series by Richard Corson, covering Hair, Make-Up and Eyeglasses now exclusively available in digital format.
• A new and exclusive reference work, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design, edited by Deborah Nadoolman Landis, internationally renowned costume designer, providing comprehensive coverage of global costume design across film history. Check out a few example costume designer biographies here.
• Exclusive contextual articles written by leading dress historian Valerie Cumming to enhance understanding of the historiography of dress history. Includes useful online materials for dress and fashion historians, including groups, museums, and societies.
• Outstanding reference content such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing through World History, allowing users to explore dress and costume across global cultures and history.
• Over 800 images from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, covering musical theater, dance, period costume, theatrical drawings and more.
• 13 articles in the Recreative Reflections mini-collection, edited by Serena Dyer and Sarah A. Bendall. From indigo recipes to historic bootmaking, this series articulates and communicates recreative practice approaches to dress and textile history.
• Garment study videos analysing key garments in detail, produced exclusively in collaboration with the Fashion Archives and Museum of Shippensburg University, US. Watch a taster of these videos below!