Blog Posts by Subject: Fashion

There are a few weeks left before Halloween festivities... maybe you'll find a costume idea at the library.

The Art & Architecture Collection has a large collection of women’s (and some men’s) 19th century fashion-plate periodicals. While French fashion dominated the 19th century this post features a selection of magazines from England, America and Sweden.

The summer is almost over, time to head back school! With a new school year, comes a new look, a new style or a fashion trend to try.

1914 was a very eventful year in the world, and in magazine advertising.

Learn about luxury retail; job placement assistance provided.

Halfway through the event, students from the High School of Fashion Industries had a fashion show. They modeled their outfits by walking up and down the curved staircases in Astor Hall. Chic and funky punk rock outfits abounded.

Rapidly evolving developments in printing technology and paper manufacture during the 19th century were a democratizing process which lowered costs and made books of all kinds accessible to a wider audience. In that context it is interesting that, even early on, one of the most popular genres of these inexpensive books was self-improvement. The selection that follows is the barest tip of the iceberg of what is available in the Art & Architecture 

Every year, my interns and I have the pleasure of working with the students at the High School for Fashion Industries in conjunction with the Library’s wonderful Anti-Prom projects, managed by our colleagues in Teen services. Past themes have included Goth, Monsters, Super Heroes, and Glam. This year was Punk.

Last week, LPA hosted a public program on The Beatles and their circle as an influence on fashion in England and here. Phyllis Magidson, Curator of Costume and Textiles for the Museum of the City of New York, and I developed an illustrated conversation on their transitions from Rockers to Mods to Hippies with an occasional visit to Teddy Boys. The black, needle-nose ankle boots stuck around until the trips to India.

Miranda Priestly is the harbinger of fashion excellence, at least according to her. Factor in a woman who throws temper tantrums about having to wait two and a half minutes for anything, and you have got a boss from hell. Fourteen-hour days for assistant Andrea so that she and her colleague Emily can be at Miranda's beck-and-call every minute of the day.

It's the end of an era. Michael Kors will no longer be a judge on Project Runway as it starts its 11th season, which means we can no longer enjoy his slicing and dicing analogies aimed at the designers' runway miscues.

Who could forget such classics as

"She looks like Barefoot Appalachian Lil' Abner Barbie."

or

"She looks like a pole dancer in Dubai."

So I spent some time in the lab and after watching hours and hours of Project Runway I 

Teenagers in London's Carnaby Street. Wikimedia CommonsPost-WWII London, by the mid-to-late 1960s, was reimagining, rebuilding and rearranging. Its economy was strong, and nearly 30% of its population was aged 15-34. With these factors in play, and with that undefinable "something" that brings creativity and zest to a location for however brief a time, London emerged as the style capital of the world, its youth culture arising from the heady influences of new music and street 

In the film The Truth About Cats & Dogs there is a scene where Janeane Garafalo’s character Abby is at a cosmetics counter in a department store. Abby has been dragged there by her new friend and total opposite Noelle, played by Uma Thurman. The salesperson warns Abby of the dire condition her skin is in and how she can take action to counter her “huge pore” situation. Abby quips that it sounds more like the salesperson is planning to stage a military coup rather than advise her on 

Design by Robert Ten Eyck Stevenson for the Greenwich Village Follies

This blog channel is inspired by the current exhibition at the Library for the Performing Arts, The Great American Revue: How Florenz Ziegfeld, George White and their Rivals Remade Broadway, which is on view through July 27, 2012. The material on display is drawn from the collections of LPA’s Research Divisions.

“Color,” our key image, is one of a 

A recent question at the reference desk was how to find more about the sculpture of the large button threaded with a needle that stands in the Garment District of New York City at 7th Avenue and 39th Street. This query reminded me of a previous

Wondering how you'll carry your keys and such while out and about in your fancy pants outfit on New Year's Eve? If so — and if you are a lover of DIY — then look no further than these two books: Helen Crosier's Crochet & Tatting and other Needlework Crafts (1953) and Elizabeth Laird Mathieson's Needlework Library (1949).

From Helen Crosier, a double crochet evening belt done in neon white with pearl and sequin 

This post briefly examines and explores how one can conduct research in weddings and marriages using the Library's traditional and new media collections.

Leave it to the queen of modeling, Tyra Banks, to get over 300 teens to show off their favorite poses in the middle of the Bartos Forum in the Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library. The room was filled with teens arching their backs in their fiercest high fashion poses. Smizing was a must! The group then went on to catalog posing where they had the wind in their hair and fake surprised faces that expressed their model-happiness with a chorus of, “Ahh!” One fan even felt so inclined to jump up there with Tyra and profess her love for the model turned reality star 

Every year in mid September the city is abuzz as the fashion industry’s elite swoop in from various locations across the globe donning their couture duds. This influx of fashion is enough to make even the most fashionable New Yorker on your block feel like an Ugly Betty for the entire span of New York Fashion Week.  The glitterati have previewed and reviewed the upcoming styles and partied till the break of dawn, and gone off to wait for the spring fashion events.