Production & Design

Looking for professional or trade publications in your discipline? 

Here is a list of publications, magazines, and trades dedicated to the professional and educational worlds of professional industry technicians and costume designers. 

• The Costume Designer: Official publication of the Costume Designers Guild, aimed at costume designers and costume illustrators

Looking for subject-related websites?

This is a list of useful websites related to the study, practice, and professional experiences of costume & makeup designers and practitioners.

• NYPL: Costume and Fashion History: A Guide to Resources: Extensive instructional guide on how to use NYPL resources for costuming history and research. A wonderful place to find selected & well-researched and credible reference sources. 
• Library of Congress: A Resource Guide to Clothing, Costume, and Fashion: This guide, created by the Library of Congress, compiles resources about clothing and dress from ancient eras to the current day, including print materials, subscription databases, and external websites. Potentially limited access to subscription databases. 
• The Vintage Fashion Guild (VFG) is an international organization dedicated to the promotion and preservation of vintage fashion. They have many visual resources for fabric, vintage hats, and lingerie.

Looking for primary sources online or in the NYC area?

Provided below is a list of in-person and digital archives featuring various archival collections of theatre costume designs, designers, and other ephemera. 

• Billy Rose Theatre Divison, The New York Public Library for Performing Arts: The Billy Rose Theatre Division of The New York Public Library is one of the largest and most comprehensive archives devoted to the theatrical arts. Encompassing dramatic performance in all its diversity, the division is an indispensable resource for artists, writers, researchers, scholars, students, and the general public.
• Royal Victoria and Albert Museum Costume Collection: search the costume collection of the Royal Victoria and Albert Museum from the mid-18th century to today.
• Digitized collections from the Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design (hosted by the University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign)

• Bonnie Cashin Digitized Collection (From UCLA Library Special Collections)

• The Shubert Archive Costume Designs: More than 3000 items, primarily for Shubert productions of the 1910s and 1920s. Costume designers represented include Alois Bohnen, Myra Butterworth, Homer Conant, Basil Crage, Alfredo Edel, Lou Eisele, Howard Greer, Yvette Kiviette, Cora MacGeachy, William Mathews, Mrs. Caroline Siedle, Dolly Tree, William Weaver, and Sam Zalud.