Primary Resources: Fashion History

The Allard Pierson Museum and the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam (HvA) offer interesting archives in their special collections. I will do a series of blog posts on those resources and the responsible curator/collection specialist. This first post focuses on the fashion journal collections at the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) Library.  

Although the Royal Library (KB) has an extensive collection of Vogue journals, the AMFI library owns the largest archive of this periodical in the Netherlands. Paper versions of Vogue at AMFI include New York (1966-1995), London (1958-2015), Milan (1977 - latest issue), Paris (1977 - recent issues), Netherlands (2012 - recent issues), l'uomo Vogue (1980-1991) etc.  

Vogue is not the only fashion periodical at the AMFI. 

Timetable Fashion Periodicals
Fashion library specialist Welmoed Tamminga is constructing a timetable with a list of fashion journal archives for each time period. The included periodicals are either online or at the AMFI Library available. It is still a work in progress, but she has already covered 1600 to 1940.

 GO TO TIMETABLE  

Ideas for research
Simply browsing the stacks of literature and talking to Welmoed can give you ideas on fashion topics for a thesis or paper. Did you know for instance that Victorians already published knitting books? The University of South Hampton Library has digitalized them. Or were you aware that the US edition of Vogue, from 1892-2016, can be accessed online at Internet Archive? 

A specialist like Welmoed has thorough knowledge and a network to help you with finding archives on fashion-related topics.    

Database Berg Fashion Library
In addition to the AMFI journal archive, the UvA has a subscription to the Berg Fashion Library.  It contains scholarly and multidisciplinary information on clothing and fashion worldwide from prehistory to the present. Including reference books such as the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion, and Classic and Modern Writings on Fashion.

The Dictionary of Fashion History is also a good reference work on terminology within fashion history.    

So there are quite a number of resources in Amsterdam to have a look at when your research topic is related to fashion history.

Quick Links

• Berg Fashion Library (database)
• Catalogue HvA 
• Dictionary of Fashion History  
• Internet Archive
• Welmoed Tamminga, fashion librarian HvA AMFI

    

All photos (except the fashion dictionary) are made by WvdB, 2023. CC-BY