A series of female dress silhouettes with the year listed below.
A series of male and female fashion depicted in illustrations.
A series of female dress silhouettes with the year listed below.
History of Women’s Fashion: Europe and America
Welcome to History of Women’s Fashion: America and Europe Pathfinder. This pathfinder is designed to guide high school and undergraduate students and those who are interested in researching the history of fashion or costume design. This compendium is designed to offer a variety of resources to assist scholars in their work. The databases, journals, and web-based resources will support researcher access to information concerning various locales and time periods. The featured articles focus on France as a cultural innovator. These resources will enable students, researchers, and anyone in-between to begin their exploration of the topic. Those interested in other subject matter can utilize the databases and articles for research into such diverse areas as cultural, economic, and historical trends.
​
The pathfinder includes the following pages:
​
Books, Reference Books, Journals, Articles, Databases, Online Resources evaluation guide, Websites, Podcasts, Videos, Magazines, Bibliography, and Authors
​
​
About Women's Fashion: Europe and America
​
The history of fashion is a history of the human race. As a medium of self-expression, dress and fashion can reflect cultural changes in societies. In Europe and North America, a study of fashion helps to tell the story of Western Civilization. Fine made-to-wear clothing was, at first, solely the prerogative of the European nobility and the merchant class, while common folk wore homespun garb.
​
From a luxury available only to the ruling elites, a cottage industry for tailored clothing became accessible over the years to the yeomanry and the emerging urban middle-class. With its origins in nineteenth-century Paris, the modern fashion industry saw the rise of fashion houses where couturiers and designers created haute couture for select clients. The advent of the Industrial Revolution yielded factories manufacturing ready-to-wear clothing in large production runs.
​
The study of fashion is an interdisciplinary field. Scholars from art, art history, anthropology, religious studies, sociology, economics, theatre, film, business, science, and even engineers all look at different aspects and impacts of fashion on the world around us.