Fashion Resources

Auction Houses

Doyle New York - Their April 11, 2006 Sale featured "a Century of Important Vintage Couture by the World's Great Designers" and their November 16, 2004 Sale featured "a remarkable group of gowns and accessories from the collection of Margaret Daly Brown, formerly from the estate of her daughter, Frances Carroll Brown." The April 20, 2005 sale included eleven Hermes handbags from a single owner. See Hermes Birkin Bag Sells for $64,800 at Doyle New York's Auction of Couture, Textiles & Accessories on April 20, 2005. Photographs include:

Royal Blue Ostrich Birkin Bag

Etrusque Crocodile Kelly Bag

Black Crocodile Birkin with Pave Diamonds - Sold for $64,800

Sothebys

Marion Morehouse in a Chanel Gown - Photograph by Edward Steichen, Lot 140, Sale N07885, New York, 23 April 2003. (Sold for $3,600).

Coco Chanel's White Pique Work Overall - 1960s. Lot 183, Sale NO7885, London, 27 November 2003.

Hermès brown crocodile handbag - 1950s. Lot 1, Sale W03826, London, 19 May 2003. Fit for a Princess: Jewels and Couture from the Collection of the Late Her Royal Highness Princess Lilian of Belgium and Various Owners. See Catalogue for other handbags from this sale.

Bespoke

Journalist Peter Howarth explains the difference between bespoke and personal tailoring as follows: "In brief, the elements that go into making a pukka bespoke product: you start from scratch with measuring sessions, individual patterns are created, horsehair canvasses for inside the garment are washed, softened and hand-shaped over the knee, there's a great deal of hand-making, three fittings, six to 10 weeks waiting time, 65.5 manufacturing hours and a price tag of about Pounds 2,750 for a two-piece. Personal tailoring, on the other hand, is where you take an existing garment and make a version of it, largely by machine to the customer's specifications. You can change fabrics and linings and details and in four to six weeks have a pretty special result starting at that magical Pounds 695 for a two-piece." (Tailored to a Suitable Price, Financial Times, 27 November 2004.)

Further amplification is provided by Ray A. Smith in his A Real Savile Row, Wall Street Journal, April14-15, 2007. "William Skinner worries that customers will think that made-to-measure, which typically involves using a stock pattern that is then adjusted to fit the client's measurements and taste, is the same thing as bespoke or custom...Custom suits are made entirely from scratch - mostly by hand, in a process that can take at least two or three fittings and at least eight weeks. More than 20 measurements are taken for a besopke garment."

Thomas Mahon provides much helpful information on his website, English Cut. See, in particular, his What is Bespoke?. Other resources include The London Cut: Savile Row Bespoke Tailoring, an exhibition held in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence in January and February 2007, the Custom Tailors & Designers Association of America which has a Find a Tailor database, and Savile Row Bespoke an association formed in 2004 "to protect and to develop the art of bespoke tailoring as practised in the Row and the surrounding streets" which provides a member list

Bespoke tailors, many located on Savile Row, include:

Bespoke shoemakers or bootmakers include:

Bespoke shirtmakers, many located on Jermyn Street, include:

ContessaNally - “Visual Online Diary.” Contessa Nally Manfredi Bellati lives in Venice and is a photographer and stylist whose photographs have appeared in many magazines. See ">Shopping in Marrakech.

Tavi Says: Fashion Dictates from a fourteen-year old by Lizzie Widdicombe, New Yorker, September 20, 2010.

Designers

Alphabetical by last name:

See Guardians of History: At Christian Dior by Robert Young, New York Times, November 8, 2010. Soizic Pfaff, the archivist at Dior, “is working on a complete Dior Heritage Web site, which she likens to the brand’s very own “Internet library.” As she describes it, the digitized version of the archives “will help us keep the past in the present and help the past stand the test of time.”

Rocio Ildemaro - Dallas-based shoe designer. See New shoe designer to know: Rocio Ildemaro , Editors' Blog, W. Magazine, August 31, 2009. "The first thing you learn is patternmaking, and you learn how to look at the last, how to hold the last, and how to make the pattern off of the last without using computers. We're using ancient methods—you cover the last with paper, and you work in half millimeter increments. It's very, very old-school. First you learn how to make a men's shoe with a pattern, and once you learn how to do a Derby and an Oxford, and you master those, then you move on to women's pumps."

Lainey Keogh - See RTE Radio Ireland interview , with Eamon Dunphy, 20 October 2007.

Karl Lagerfeld - Also a publisher, his Edition 7L has issued over 40 books. Lagerfeld was profiled in In the Now: Where Karl Lagerfeld Lives by John Colapinto, New Yorker, March 19, 2007, pp. 112-125.

Liberty of London - See Guardians of Heritage: At Liberty by Robb Young, New York Times, November 8, 2010. Anna Buruma isthe archivist for the Liberty department store in London. “The business primarily uses the archives overseen by Ms. Buruma as inspiration for its printed textile range, although sometimes its contents are mined for retail marketing campaigns too. And the wholesale fabric unit also calls on her to help clients who are ordering exclusive fabrics.”

Alexander Wang - See Balenciaga Hires Alexander Wang , by Nadya Masidlover and Christina Binkley, Wall Street Journal, December 3, 2013. "At Balenciaga, Mr. Wang, who made his name on edgy, street-wise styles, will bring to the almost-100-year-old label both a younger image and his track record of creating successful accessories - the cash cow of the global luxury-goods industry. His appointment marks the most high-profile recruitment of an American to lead a major European fashion house since Marc Jacobs and Tom Ford were hired by Louis Vuitton and Gucci, respectively, in the 1990s. Born to Taiwanese parents, Mr. Wang is at the vanguard of a new generation of American designers. After dropping out of Parsons design school in New York, he launched his New York-based label in 2007, and quickly won a prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award. He built his brand mixing athletic looks with tailoring, becoming a hit with the "Gossip Girl" set of young, urbane females, with his apparel even appearing on the TV show itself. Mr. Wang later gained a broader appeal with women in their thirties and forties."

Forecasting

Gawker - See Search and Destroy: Nick Denton's Blog Empire by Ben McGrath, New Yorker, October 18, 2010, pp. 50-61.

Libraries

Magazines

Model Agencies

National Museums of Scotland - Has a database of "images, audio clips, video clips and 3D environments." Search for such terms as European Costume, Dress, woman's, tartan, Scottish Crafts Collection, Jersey, knitted, Fashion plates, etc.

Carine Roitfeld - Editor, French Vogue. See The Anti-Anna by Amy Larocca, New York Magazine, February 18, 2008. "Roitfeld has been the editor-in-chief of French Vogue for the past seven years, ever since she took over from the cerebral Joan Juliet Buck. Roitfeld remade French Vogue in her own image, which is to say svelte, tough, luxurious, and wholeheartedly in love with dangling-cigarette, bare-chested fashion. French Vogue is now internationally major, to use an industry expression, with an influence that transcends its tiny (133,000) circulation."

Rethinking Fashion: Fast Life, Slow Fashion: A New Theory of Fashion - November 19, 2009.

News

Project Runway - Reality television series on the Bravo network. See Reality show wins Peabody Award for first time , Reuters, April 2, 2008.

Reference

Schools

Shows