Hi! We're outside today because I can. And I guess some of you could use some fresh air
So here it is!
Imagine you're sitting here with me and we're just, you know,
calmly discussing all of the messages that I am getting that annoy the heck out of me.
Just kidding! I do get a lot of messages and a lot of them are like,
"I'm doing a school play that's based in 1920s and can you give me any tips on 1920s fashion?" or
"I'm writing a novel that's set in 1854 but I just can't find any information about what women wore."
So, this video here is for all of you who didn't do your homework
And maybe you just didn't know how to find this kind of information
But we live in the times when there is just so much information online.
There is just so much stuff you can find and is really not that difficult
And a car is coming
See you!
We're supposed to stay home!
So, this video is for all of you that have trouble researching fashion history
and are stuck at home probably...
or maybe you're watching this when we're all out already and you're just sitting at home bored
Here is all of the places where you can study fashion history
Some of them are free-Most of them are free. Some of them you have to pay for
but I think it's worth it in the long run.
Anyway, let's start off with books!
So, what kind of books should you read?
A lot of people ask all the time about,
"Is there a single book you can recommend about fashion history?"
And the answer is no.
The books that are dedicated to whole fashion history obviously suck
because it's impossible
Would you say, "Can you recommend a single book on history? Like, a single book on history of humankind?"
Obviously, that book would be very very shallow
So, if you're looking for books, you should at least narrow it down to an era,
if not to a specific topic
So, for example, you should be looking for books about corsets if that's what interests you,
or you should be looking at books about women's 19th century fashion,
or men's 18th century fashion,
or shoewear!
You know, just narrow it down because books written about
a particular topic that is not so super wide as "The history of humankind"
Those kinds of books are so much better for you because they have so much more information and details
that you might use, and they're really interesting, and you know,
you don't have space in a huge book about fashion history to put any anecdotes
or quotes in it.
Whereas, if you have a single book dedicated to, let's say, women's pockets,
there is enough space for that!
It gives you a better understanding of the topic.
Obviously, if you wanted to know the whole fashion history, you would have to read ALL the books
We all know you don't have time for that! You can't afford that!
Back?
What was I saying?
Those books are definitely a lot better
And there is a scooter coming.
Honestly, what are you guys up to?
You can get those books mostly off Amazon. Like, anything that's-
Anything that's interesting or good should be there
There are books on fabrics, there are books on shoes, there are books on hairstyles, head wear,
All of that stuff and-
A protip for all of you cheapskates out there:
If you find those books on Google Books, you can almost always have a little peek inside
and sometimes it allows you to read whole chapters
Like, not the whole book, but like most of it
or like, two thirds of it
Sometimes it's really cool, because it's better to read one chapter of a really good book
than
The last time I'm shooting outside!
Than to read a whole book that is not that good.
So, look for those books on Google Books,
and sneakily have a look inside, see what they're like,
read the chapters available to you,
and if you find those books interesting, get them on Amazon!
Because they should be there.
Another thing is that books, or articles, or stuff
that was actually written in the era that you're researching
So, we all know that it's interesting to read modern perspective of what it looked like, but you'll never know
unless you actually read what they thought about it
So, it's really cool to read 19th century books about 19th century,
or 17th century books about 17th century fashion
What's interesting is that those books are also free because the copyright expired
So
I must say all of us researching anything that's pre-1930s, 1940s,
will have an easier job, because most of the stuff is already copyright free.
So, it would be way easier to find
Honestly, what the hell-!
As difficult as it is to find original texts from the era and like sources,
if you find them, they're really good.
And I'm talking like, books on beauty, books on fashion, books on being ladylike
There's a lot of interesting tips there that can often tell you a lot about fashion in that time.
Books are all cool and stuff, but you shouldn't only be reading books
because it's good when it comes to fashion history at least, to always have that visual reference
that you can compare to what's been written.
Especially when it comes to modern
elaboration
of particular fashion history topics,
it's good to have the visual reference, or at least, you know, have a look at actual fashion magazines,
portraits, fashion plates, to know that what's been written is actually applicable to this
Because I've read so many things sometimes
that when you look at what people actually wore, it doesn't make any sense
There is a dude in his garden looking at me, I think.
Hi there, neighbor.
I don't- I've never met you- Oh my god I think he just waved at me
Anyway, magazines and fashion plates, are so, so important when it comes to
getting an idea of what a silhouette looked like,
because sometimes you get something in text and you're like, "Yeah, cool," but you imagine it completely different to what it actually looked like
So, I love looking at fashion plates because it shows so many things that are never
actually discussed in all these texts and articles and
umm...
books,
because it's not important. You know,
it's not important to a fashion historian whether a bow in 1886 skirt was on the left or on the right
most of the time. Or whether or not
the hem was underlined with canvas,
you know. And all that stuff, maybe it doesn't show on fashion plates and such, but it does show on original clothing
And it's sometimes good to have both the fashion plates
in your head, and the original clothing.
So, the fashion plates are actually really easily accessible at this point, because
as I said, most of the stuff that's pre-1920s, like, the copyright has expired.
So if you go at pages of museums,
especially those that have a fashion department,
like, Met Museum, for example,
Or, if you go at libraries, you can have a look at a lot of fashion plates.
Met Museum has a really great collection of fashion plates, but a lot of public libraries do as well
And it usually comes down to Googling like "Library-Fashion plates-1896"
or something like that. Sometimes you can find them off Pinterest
but Pinterest is very unreliable when it comes to giving dates for the fashion plates
but we'll get back to that later
Back to that? We'll get back to that later, yeah.
There is a lot of 18th century
fashion plates a website called
Gallica?
.fr Um, I'll give you links to all of the spaces- sites I'm talking about in the description, so don't worry
So, I mentioned the original clothing
Luckily for us, most museums nowadays have their collections digitilized
which means that we can have a look
at least at the garmet from the outside and the front if not the back or the inside which is sometimes also shown.
So, you can have a look at the biggest fashion museums in the world
and just have a look at their websites and check out their collections.
I'm pretty sure you can do that at the VNA museum, you can look at their collections.
you can definitely have a look at Met. (we get it, Met is cool)
They have a lot of stuff.
The Quiero Costume Institute, which apparently is not actually a museum,
but they have a lot of stuff as well.
My personal favorite is the National Gallery of Scotland
because they have their clothes digitilized in a way that you can turn them around.
Like, 360 degrees, which is a really cool way of displaying clothing,
and I wish every museum did this, because so many times there is just this ONE DETAIL that you wanna have a look at
and it's not only on the website, it's not only available 360, but also you can zoom in
really close.
You have to be careful though because sometimes, and it doesn't happen often, but sometimes,
even the museums don't label their clothing correctly.
For example Met (ooh drama) is famous for mislabeling a Robe a la Polonaise
which is actually a Robe a L'Anglaise
I think there is a tractor coming, so we'll have to wait that out.
How are you guys? Let's chat while this thing is moving.
My dad is coming...
[awkward silence]
How are you doing, sir
Good day in the field, was it?
So yeah, museums are cool.
Another way of learning some fashion history is through online courses.
And online groups.
There is actually not that much fashion history related online courses
because I did check that out at one point, and it's not that available, but
there's a lot of Facebook groups.
And as silly as it may sound, if you find a really good group,
it is going to teach you a lot about fashion history, and it is going to be a really nice environment,
because we all know some Facebook groups can be a bit... Nasty!
But if you find the right ones, you can actually learn a lot.
So again, it kind of depends on the era that you're going for, but there should be a lot of groups for each era, and
make sure you find ones where there are a lot of people that are actually passionate about the topic and
there's a lot of reenactors
because they mostly care about their outfits to be historically accurate.
which is why they do a lot of research
So, and then we also have scholars.
So, the academic aspect of it.
Fashion history is an academic part of history, and it is acknowledged as that
so there is actually a lot of people, you know: PhD candidates, professional historians,
that do delve into the topic of fashion history
and that results in a lot of high quality texts, articles, or, you know, conferences
So, last year I attended the Association of Dress Historians Conference
in the UK, and they do actually have journals of fashion history, that are available online
and they do have some texts on several topics in fashion history
you know, every journal has different topics
Like, "Working class women in Rural Ireland in 1830s" or
"Golden Trimmings in Swedish King's Fashion"
I don't know. They're really narrow topics,
which makes it really interesting, because these are topics that you won't usually read about in a book.
So, if you're interested in that, go check out their website, which I'll also link in the description
and you can have a look at what they have to offer.
I like reading those journals because again these are topics I would never find about otherwise,
You can also check out the academia.edu
Edu? Website, and they have a lot of texts about fashion history and
most of them are for the "Premium Members" where you have to
buy a membership to actually access the texts, but
I found some free ones and they actually helped me with my research, so maybe they'll help you with whatever you're working on, or researching at the moment
Then we have Podcasts
Which I think is not the best medium when it comes to fashion history, because you can't see what they're talking about.
But they're really good for when you're setting up something or sewing, and
you want to educate yourself while doing something. So,
if you're for example, cooking a breakfast, you can just play a podcast in the background and learn something about fashion history.
I think the most recognizable podcast out there is "Dressed"