For this week’s assignment, I examined the contents of the Collection of Fashion, Theater and Film Design for the years 1913 – 2000. Each fashion design has a photograph of the outfit. Most of the links and documents available were of iconic figures such as a “Little Bo Peep” costume and iconic fashion eras such as the flapper girl styles of the 1920’s and early 1930’s. The great thing about the posts is that there is a clear description of the clothing worn in the photographs. There is also another section in the table that shows the manufacturer and fashion designers for the outfit. If you click on name of the fashion designer or manufacturer of the design, it takes you to a screen with a compilation of all the photographs of the outfits and designs created by either the fashion designer or manufacturer. One problem that I foresee is not having enough information about the fashion designers or manufacturers. For one, there should be a more detailed explanation of the individuals or companies that came up with the outfits. I feel that an excerpt about them would be beneficial to users. Another problem that I see is not as much specification with the types of materials that were used in the fabric to make the outfits. I feel that this is relevant because many different fabrics had to be used throughout history. This is important because an individual can draw different conclusions and even expand on their findings for research if this type of information were to be provided. An example of the impact that information like this would make is the fact that during the mid 1900’s, clothes was being made out of hemp (same plant that comes from marijuana). Yet at some point, that type of material to make clothes became banned. This information could help a historian or a sociologist analyze the correlation between importing and exporting laws with clothes, drug laws and clothes, social impact of hemp and clothes, etc.
Overall, I really like the digital archive because it has pictures for every outfit and simple, concise descriptions that really break down the photographs. However, I wish the digital archive would have more details about the specifications of the outfits including more information about the manufacturers and fashion designers as well as information about the type of fabrics that were used to create the outfits so that this information could be used to analyze the different epochs within the fashion industry.
