Winner of the 2011 Dartmouth Medal, the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair Digital Award and the 2011 Bookseller FutureBook Award for Best Website, the Berg Fashion Library is the only resource to provide integrated text and image content on world dress and fashion throughout history. Invaluable for scholars, students, professionals, and anyone interested in dress, it includes the Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, an extensive E-Book collection, a vast image bank, extra reference resources and more.

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May 3, 2012

Update 5 now live, and new image partnership!

New partnership

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. has partnered with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. With this exciting addition to the Berg Fashion Library the Museum will be sharing c.2500 high quality images from their world-renowned costume and textiles collection, to go live in 2013.

New content

• 1,500 new images, from the Commercial Pattern Archive and the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• New journal content, including the new Fashion Theory Supplement and book and exhibition reviews
• New functionalities: improved search results and separate links to access journals content

January 6, 2012

Update 4 Live: New Articles, E-Books and Links to Oxford Art Online

The fourth update of the year brings a host of new content and functionality:

NEW CONTENT

 
NEW FUNCTIONALITY

  • Direct linking through to third-party hosted journal content using an OpenURL resolver
  • Activation of external links to Oxford Art Online for subscribers on SAMS as “Grove Art” (as well as “Oxford Art Online”)
  • Internal links from V&A images to articles on individual designers in the A to Z of Fashion

September 20, 2011

BFL Highly Commended at ALPSP Awards

The Berg Fashion Library has been awarded with an ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) Highly Commended Certificate for Publishing Innovation 2011. The Winner was announced at the 2011 ALPSP International Conference at Heythrop Park, near Oxford, UK from 14-16 September.

September 9, 2011

Update 3 Live: Met Images; New Articles; Lesson Plans and More

Now Live! More content including images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Berg has partnered with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to bring 2000+ images from the internationally renowned Costume Institute’s collection to be available through the Berg Fashion Library. 500 images are now live on the site.

New this month:

  • Seven new articles for the Online Exclusives section of the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion

  • 500 images from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. This is the first of four groups of images from the Met

  • Lesson Plans with links through to online content

  • Several hundred links to Oxford Art Online

July 5, 2011

Berg Fashion Library Shortlisted for ALPSP Award

The Berg Fashion Library has been shortlisted for the for the ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) Award for Publishing Innovation 2011. The Winner will be announced at the 2011 ALPSP International Conference at Heythrop Park, near Oxford, UK from 14-16 September.

More News »

Discover Far Eastern Art

Discover a Future Collection

Discover Designers

Discover Body and Beauty

Discover Eveningwear

Discover New Styles

Batik Dress of Java

Batik is practiced in several parts of the world, but it is in Java that it has reached its technical and artistic apogee, used in the production of a wide range of apparel. Due to their complex symbolic meanings and social significance, batik textiles are also recognized as a key manifestation of Javanese culture and philosophy.

(Image © Norwani Md. Nawawi)

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Philadelphia Museum of Art

Announcing a new partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which will be sharing c.2500 high quality images from their world-renowned costume and textiles collection. Highlights include designs by Elsa Schiaparelli and Charles Frederick Worth. The images will go live in 2013.

(Image © Philadelphia Museum of Art)

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Christian Lacroix

Christian Lacroix was born in 1951 in Arles, France, 61 years ago. His trademark style of fantastic textures, fluid fabrics, and richly coloured flamboyant costumes turned the world into an artistic fashion stage, whilst also reflecting his Provençal roots and his fascination with folklore and history.

(Image © Bloomsbury Fashion Photography Archive)

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Fashionable Hair

What is the earliest recorded hairdressing practice?

When did the hairdressing profession start to take its contemporary shape?

How did ancient Greek barber shops, and medieval teeth-pulling barber-surgeons, develop into celebrity coiffeurs and wig makers?

(Image © Geraldine Biddle-Perry)

Find Out More

Ballgowns

Evening dress is the prevailing style prescribed by fashion to be worn in the evening.

Behind this basic definition,however, and regardless of the era, there seem to be surprisingly complex expectations related to the appropriateness of fashionable dress for evening.

(Image © V&A Museum)

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Art Nouveau

Art nouveau design penetrated into all types of modern, luxury European decorative arts in the period from 1895 to 1905.

Its undulating vegetal curves and graceful floral swirls were also a design gift to the Parisian couturiers and until about 1908 or 1909 art nouveau style was energetically appropriated for seasonal, high-fashion use.

(Image © V&A Museum)

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