As you are working on your research on costume or fashion history, please let me know if I can help in any way! Please feel free to email me and we can discuss your questions over email, or you can book a time for an in-person or Zoom meeting on my calendar.
I have added links here for online scholarly resources that will assist you in your research: reference sources, scholarly books, scholarly articles, and images. ZSR has access to thousands of ebooks and millions of online articles through our regular resources in the library catalog and databases such as Performing Arts Periodicals Database and JSTOR. We also have access to thousands of streaming films and online images if you need multimedia resources. Get tips on finding and using these resources from the tabs above. Additionally, in the Images & Websites tab, you will find links to many fashion and costume collections, archives, and exhibitions.
If you need additional, theatre-specific resources, please see the Theatre Research Resources page.
And last, but not least, remember to cite your sources! The Chicago Manual of Style can help you with formatting citations for the sources you find.
Stay healthy and well!
Kaeley McMahan
mcmahak@wfu.edu
Two Tech Tips:
- Download and use VPN: If you keep VPN running in the background while you access campus resources (ebooks, databases, etc...) it makes it look like you are on campus, so many of the authentication issues you might otherwise have will go away.
- ProQuest Ebook Central: If you get this error message, don't fear! Just do as it says and reload the page and it will take you to your book:

Online Reference Resources
Use reference resources to find background information, define terms, understand the historical context of an individual or event, and start building a bibliography of sources to consult.
Berg Fashion LibraryAn online reference database which includes the full text of the 10-volume Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, over 13,000 color images, and more than 100 academic fashion history ebooks.
Scholarly Ebooks
You will find many scholarly ebooks on fashion and costume history in the library catalog and in the Berg Fashion Library. You should also look at costume and fashion museum websites for free editions of their exhibition catalogs.
As an example of ZSR's holdings, here are the ebook results for "fashion" as the book subject. You will notice that in addition to scholarly resources, you may have results that are not academic sources, as well as primary source documents and historical magazines that might be useful. If you are not sure if a source you have found is scholarly, please feel free to contact me! Generally, you want to look for an author who is a professor/academic, a scholarly publisher, and that the author has cited sources with a good bibliography.
Scholarly Journal Articles & Historical Magazines
The Journals and Magazines tab has a list of both contemporary scholarly journals on fashion and costume, as well as historical fashion magazines, that can be accessed online.
If you are looking for scholarly/peer-reviewed/academic articles look for these features:
- at least 8-10 pages in length
- author is an academic (professor, PhD, researcher, etc...)
- published in an academic journal (Costume, Fashion Theory, etc...)
- the bibliography is appropriate for the article length
The following databases are good places to look for scholarly research:
Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowPerforming Arts Periodicals Database indexes around 400 scholarly and trade journals, magazines, books, and newspapers covering theater, dance, film, television, stagecraft, broadcast arts, storytelling, and more. It draws from both current files and selected backfiles to 1864 and 134 publications are included in full text. Coverage: 1864-
JSTOR This link opens in a new windowA full-text database of archived issues of academic journals. Since JSTOR is a backfiles project, a typical coverage range is the beginning of a journal until three or five years ago. Supported in part by the Dail Endowment Fund. Coverage: Varies
Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the full text of over 100 scholarly journals in the arts and humanities and social sciences. Coverage: Varies
America: History and Life This link opens in a new windowAmerica: History and Life provides abstracts and citations from reviews and dissertations about the history and culture of the United States and Canada from the earliest recorded times to the present. See Historical Abstracts for world history. Coverage: 1964-
Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowHistorical Abstracts provides indexing and abstracts for journal articles, books, and dissertations covering the history of the world from 1450-- except the U.S. and Canada. For similar coverage of the U.S. and Canada, use America History and Life. Coverage: 1954-
Art Full Text This link opens in a new windowProvides citations and select full text from over 250 publications such as periodicals, yearbooks, museum bulletins, exhibition listings, interviews, and film reviews. Also indexes reproductions of works of art that appear in indexed periodicals. Subjects covered include advertising art, antiques, archaeology, architecture, art history, crafts, decorative arts, folk art, graphic arts, industrial design, interior design, landscape architecture, motion pictures & film, museology, non-western art, photography, pottery, sculpture, television, and textiles. Coverage: 1929-
Images
Images from the ARTstor database can be used in papers and presentations. You may find other images via museum websites, but confirm that they are free to use.
See the Images & Websites tab for more information and links to major museum and archival collections.
Artstor This link opens in a new windowThe Artstor Digital Library provides images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences, with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. Comprises contributions from outstanding international museums, photographers, libraries, photo archives, and artists and artists' estates. Images form ARTstor are for noncommercial educational or scholarly use only. Images may be used in educational or scholarly presentations, including printed handouts, but may not be otherwise distributed or publicly displayed.
Getty Open Content This link opens in a new windowHosted by the Getty Research Institute. Search across several of the Getty repositories, including collections databases, library catalogs, collection inventories, and archival finding aids. This link initially limits your search to images available for free download under the Getty's Open Content Program. Coverage: Details not available
Performance Design Archive This link opens in a new windowPerformance Design Archive Online is the first comprehensive, international collection that covers all aspects of theater production design, from the 17th century through to the present day, including, scenic and set design, lighting design, sound design, costume design, makeup, and more. It includes 100,000 pages of primary and secondary resources, including sketches, photographs, technical drawings, monographs, articles, and dissertations.
Museum exhibition catalogs can also be a great place to find historical representations of fashion via sculptures, paintings, and personal artifacts.