Archival Sources for Fashion Forward

Corporate Memos and Marketing Materials

Half-cultural history and half-business history, Fashion Forward uses internal documents that detail the complicated relationships between company owners and designers, sales strategies, and happenings of the industry’s many trade organizations. Dusty press releases saved in archival collections provide direct insight into how garment manufacturers and retailers sold casual clothing to American consumers.

The Voices of the Consumers

This book features an eclectic group of American consumers, including a Black student activist whose letters home to Detroit tell of her style changes in the early 1960s and a department store worker, whose diary details trips to speakeasies and late-night, make-out sessions. She writes of the sartorial problems caused by the drop of hemlines in the late 1920s.

Garments, Garments, Garments

Hands-on research in half-a-dozen costume collections gives Fashion Forward a solid foundation in 20th-century material culture. These artifacts are considered alongside a range of fashion photography and illustration.