Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library

The first comprehensive online collection for the study of dress and costume history, design and making.

Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library brings together essential resources, including primary source material as well as exclusive eBooks, video and reference content, for students and researchers of dress history, film and theatre costume, costume design and construction.

This resource promotes the study of historical dress via an object-based approach, highlighting the paramount importance of historical accuracy for students and researchers alike.

Available via perpetual access or subscription to institutions worldwide.

Content Highlights

• A collection of 65+ authoritative eBooks to enrich research — including the Focal Press Costume Topics series, exploring practical costume-making techniques.
• A new and exclusive reference work, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Film and Television Costume Design, edited by Deborah Nadoolman Landis PhD, renowned costume designer, and Director of the UCLA David C. Copley Center for Costume Design. It provides comprehensive, thematic coverage of global costume design across film history.
  - Further content updates to be added in 2024-25.
• The legendary Norah Waugh’s Cut of Men’s Clothes and Cut of Women’s Clothes are available exclusively in digital format for the first time.
• Garment study videos analysing key costume garments in detail, produced exclusively in collaboration with the Fashion Archives and Museum of Shippensburg University.
• Reference content from ABC-CLIO, such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Clothing through World History, that offers fantastic pedagogical value and allows users to explore dress and costume across global cultures and throughout history.
• Exclusive contextual articles written by leading dress historian Valerie Cumming that will help students and researchers understand the historiography of dress history.
• Reference titles from the classic Fashions In series by Richard Corson, covering ‘Hair’, ‘Make-Up’ and ‘Eyeglasses’ now exclusively available in digital format.
• A visual historical timeline, tracking key silhouettes, garments, styles and elements of dress to place them in context for students and researchers.
• Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library will be a strong complement to Berg Fashion Library - with its own distinct offerings - it will be also fully cross-searchable with all other Fashion Central collections.

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Information for librarians

Bloomsbury Fashion Central

Bloomsbury Dress and Costume Library is available on Bloomsbury Fashion Central alongside complementary collections. They are fully cross-searchable and offer enhanced content discoverability through a unified taxonomy, powerful search, and related content functionality.