Research Guides: Fashion and Apparel Studies: Databases &amp; Web Resources (by topic)

General Fashion Resources

Berg Fashion Library This link opens in a new window
The Berg Fashion Library provides journal articles, an encyclopedia, color images from museum costume collections, and e-books on world dress and fashion throughout history.
Students & scholars in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, art history, history, sociology, geography, folklore, museum studies, theatre, & cultural studies as well as fashion & textiles will find insights into people & cultures all over the world.

Black Beauty Archives
Preserves and documents the history of black beauty culture. Black Beauty Archives acquires and preserves physical materials including beauty tools, cosmetics, advertisements, photographs, memorabilia, apparel and more.

Bloomsbury Fashion Business Cases This link opens in a new window
Real-world cases on challenges facing the business of fashion, tackling issues such as sustainability, technology, ethics, and leadership.
EDITED This link opens in a new window
EDITED is a market analysis tool that allows users to access a wide range of reports related to fashion marketing and merchandising. Log in with UDelNet ID and password to access the database.

FIT Fashion History Timeline
An open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe, created by FIT.
Vogue Archive
The Vogue Archive doubles as a database and e-journal, but is only accessible from the UD Library E-Journals page. The colorful collection of issues (1892-) is great resource for fashion researchers.
The Fashion and Race Database
Collection of resources focused on amplifying BIPOC perspectives and voices in the study of fashion.

Resources for Design

WGSN Fashion This link opens in a new window
WGSN provides fashion industry forecasting and analysis. The database includes facts, figures and photos from around the world including creative inspiration, real-time retail coverage, seasonal trend analysis, consumer research and business information.
You will need to create a personal account to access certain areas of WGSN Fashion. Go to "Log in" in the upper right corner of the website. Select "Create a New Account." Use your University of Delaware email to create a WGSN account. Your account will expire after 90 days of not being used; log in again to reactivate.

Coolors
Color schemes generator which includes web version and Adobe and Chrome extensions.
Fashion Snoops - newsletter sign up
Sign up to receive free excerpts from site content (please note - the rest of the site is not free)
The Fitting Room
This augmented reality resource combines the digital collections of the Fashion Institute of Technology Library’s Special Collections and College Archives (SPARC Digital) and the Zappar augmented reality platform. Users can “try on” fashion accessories from original fashion sketches that are part of the SPARC Digital collections.
Pattern Bank
A blog with inspirational images focused on patterns.
Pattern Curator
Visual concept boards collecting color, prints and patterns for inspiration.
TinEye Labs
Image search and recognition tools.

Find Articles on Fashion Merchandising

Gale OneFile: Business This link opens in a new window
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Provides indexing and abstracting of more than 900 periodicals and full text for 460 titles
Excellent source of information on management theories, business law, key industries, mergers, acquisitions & joint ventures, international trade, new technologies, small & emerging companies, marketing & advertising, job-hunting strategies, & banking.
Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
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Business Source Premier provides full text for more than 2,300 business journals.
ABI/INFORM This link opens in a new window
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Search for articles related to business and finance. This is a good source of information on the apparel industry.
Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
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This popular database contains hundreds of full-text articles on a wide variety of subjects, including fashion merchandising. Includes WWD from Jan 3, 1983 to the present.
Expanded Academic ASAP This link opens in a new window
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Citations, indexes, abstracts, & many full-text journals covering a wide variety of disciplines. Of the more than 5,000 journal titles included, over 3,000 provide full-text articles. (Coverage: 1980 - )
Includes core titles in major academic disciplines, issue-specific journals, journals with application in the professions, & publications with national news coverage & commentary.
Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
Access full-text articles from newspapers from around the world.
Vendor Lyrasis. Publisher LexisNexis.

Find Company and Industry Information

Business Insights: Global This link opens in a new window
Business Insights: Essentials provides company and industry intelligence on thousands of global companies. It includes periodical articles, news articles, and press releases; investment reports; corporate chronologies and company histories; brands and product information; industry and company rankings; financial overviews; industry overviews; and HR law case digests.Search by company name or ticker symbol, industry code/description (SIC or NAICS), subjects in article, geographic search, or personal name. Searches can be limited by journal name, date range, or content area.
Searches can be done on company name or ticker symbol, industry code/description (SIC or NAICS), subjects in article, geographic search, or personal name. Searches can be limited by journal name, date range, or content area.
EDGAR Database of Corporate Information This link opens in a new window
A free site that offers company annual reports, 10Ks, and 10Qs filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Containing millions of company & individual filings, EDGAR benefits investors, corporations, & the U.S. economy overall by increasing the efficiency, transparency, & fairness of the securities markets. The system processes about 3,000 filings per day, serves up 3,000 terabytes of data to the public annually, & accommodates 40,000 new filers per year on average.
Passport This link opens in a new window
A global market research database providing statistics, analysis, reports, surveys and breaking news on industries, countries and consumers worldwide.
Mergent Online This link opens in a new window
Mergent Online is a comprehensive and authoritative suite of information resources that enables in-depth business and financial research. The database includes U.S. and international company data, annual reports and archives; D&B Million Dollar directory information and stock; and up to 30 years of historical stock pricing.
IBISWorld Industry Reports This link opens in a new window
Over 700 industry reports covering 98% of US economy at 5-digit NAICS code level. Trends, statistics, and analysis on market size, market share of competitors, and industry growth rates.
All reports in this collection are updated between 1 & 4 times a year.
Marketscope Advisor This link opens in a new window
Provides investment research and commentary from Standard and Poor's. Click on Industry Surveys and then on Textiles, Apparel & Luxury Goods for industry trends, industry analysis, comparative company analysis, and more.
Value Line Research Center This link opens in a new window
Value Line Research Center provides company and industry information for individual investors, portfolio managers, corporate finance professionals and academic institutions.

Textile and Apparel Trade and Sourcing

Eurostat
Provides detailed merchandise trade data of EU members based on the HS codes or NACE codes.
Global and Apparel Trade and Sourcing (FASH455)
Provides regular updates of the patterns of U.S. and global apparel trade and sourcing, trade and sourcing related statistics, and apparel trade policy analysis.
OECD Trade in Value Added Database
Provides trade in value added indicators for 64 economies including all OECD, EU28 and G20 countries, most East and South-east Asian economies and a selection of South American countries.
Office of Textile and Apparel
Provides detailed monthly and yearly U.S. textile and apparel import and export trade data and information about the utilization of U.S.-based free trade agreements and trade preference programs.
Trade Map
Provides indicators on export performance, international demand, alternative markets, and competitive markets, as well as a directory of importing and exporting companies for over 5,300 products from 220 countries.
U.S. International Trade Commission Interactive Trade Database
Provides U.S. merchandise trade and tariff data from 1989 to the present. The data are available on a monthly, quarterly, annual, or year-to-date basis.
UNComtrade
Provides United Nations global trade data. Allows users to visualize huge volumes of data and metadata, cutting-edge data extraction tools, and alternative dissemination platforms.
US Census Retail Trade
Provides monthly, quarterly, and annual US retail trade data by NAICS code (including clothing stores) from 1982 to present
World Trade Organization Tariff Database
Provides detailed tariff information (bound, and applied) for all WTO members based on HS codes.

Sustainability in Fashion

Better Buying
A ratings platform that encourages buyers to adhere to contractual agreements and prevent risk to suppliers therefore encouraging safer factory working conditions.
Center for Excellence in Universal Design
CEUD was established by Ireland's National Disability Authority with the goal of enabling people to participate in a society that takes into account human difference.
Conscious Chatter
Podcast hosted by Kestrel Jenkins with conversations about clothing, meaning and the impact of what we wear.
Design for Longevity
EU platform created by the Global Fashion Agenda sharing news, information and ideas to drive suitability throughout the life cycle of clothing.
Ethical Trading Initiative
Alliance of companies, unions and NGOs to promote respect for worker's rights globally. View list of members and find information shared with and by member orgs.
Fashion Revolution
UK non-profit organized to achieve change in the fashion industry. Includes a blog and links to educational resources.
Global Goods Partners
An organization connecting consumers to products handmade by women around the world.
Higg Index
A suite of tools that enables brands, retailers, and facilities of all sizes to accurately measure and score a company or product’s sustainability performance.
KnowTheChain
Resources for buyers and investors to learn the impact of forced labor on each section of the supply chain. Includes company and industry reports.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Information on the 17 goals developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Find Articles on Humanities and Social Sciences

Academic OneFile This link opens in a new window
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This is a database of more than 8,000 journals covering a wide range of subjects. Content includes podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and the CBC, as well as full-text New York Times articles from 1995 to the present.
Art Abstracts/Art Index Retrospective This link opens in a new window
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Two art indexes offer citations and abstracts to articles in periodicals, yearbooks and museum bulletins related to art history and design.
Subjects include art history & criticism, architecture & architectural history, archaeology, antiques, museum studies, graphic arts, industrial design, landscape architecture, interior design, folk art, painting, photography, pottery, sculpture, decorative arts, costume design, television & video, motion pictures, advertising art, non-western art, textiles, & related fields.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Digital library of more than 2,000 journals and more than 25,000 books in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences.
APA PsycINFO This link opens in a new window
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Citations and abstracts of the professional and academic literature in psychology and related disciplines.
SAGE Research Methods This link opens in a new window
Full access to SAGE books, journal articles, reference works, case studies, sample datasets and videos about designing and conducting a research project, specific research methods, performing a literature review and writing about research results.
Sociological Abstracts This link opens in a new window
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Sociological Abstracts provides access to the world's literature in sociology and related disciplines.
Can also be searched as part Social Services Abstracts.

Find Fashion Designer Biographies

Biography & Genealogy Master Index This link opens in a new window
BGMI lists sources to consult for biographical information. For best results, type the last name first [last name, first name].
Contains names, birth/death years, & bibliographic references to books containing naterial on that person & an indication of which books or articles include a portrait. Accessed via the Gale Directory Library platform.
5 concurrent users allowed.
Biography in Context This link opens in a new window
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Biography in Context contains full-text biographical information.
Biography Reference Bank This link opens in a new window
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Full-text biographies and images.
Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
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Simultaneously search a collection of online encyclopedias, dictionaries and other reference books that cover a wide range of topics.

Fashion and Apparel Studies

Online Newspaper Databases

Sears Catalogs

Godey's Lady's Book

What is a NAICS code?

General Fashion Resources

Resources for Design

Find Articles on Fashion Merchandising

Find Company and Industry Information

Textile and Apparel Trade and Sourcing

Sustainability in Fashion

Find Articles on Humanities and Social Sciences

Find Fashion Designer Biographies