How I research my historical costumes without losing my mind

Do you feel overwhelmed when researching a historical garment or fashion era? Here’s my basic method for studying dress history when I’m starting a new costume project. From fashion plates to extant clothes, art & portraiture to books and academic and historic text sources, follow along as I research the design of my upcoming Robe a la Francaise. (The number of sniffles I had to edit out of this video was obscene.) ** REFERENCES ** This was recorded a bit haphazardly so I apologize for not linking to every source seen in the video, but here are some highlights from my bookmarks collection. If you see something specific in the video that's not linked here, please leave a comment and I'll try to look for it. GENERAL FASHION TIMELINES https://fashionhistory.fitnyc.edu/ MUSEUMS https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect... (Largest museum collection in the world) https://collections.mfa.org/collections https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections?typ... https://collections.lacma.org/ https://sparcdigital.fitnyc.edu/ https://www.nationaltrustcollections.... https://www.thejohnbrightcollection.c... https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/nl/rijksst... https://www.europeana.eu/en (aggregate of several European museum collections) https://www.artic.edu/collection https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/con... (collection is somewhat hard to search) https://digital.library.unt.edu/explo... https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/co... https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/col... AUCTION HOUSES https://www.kerrytaylorauctions.com/a... https://www.meg-andrews.com/ FASHION PLATES 17th Century collection https://collections.lacma.org/search/... La Mode Illustree https://ateliernostalgia.wordpress.co... Los Angelas Public Library https://tessa.lapl.org/cdm/landingpag... Gallery of French Fashions (late 1700s) https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt... Fashions of London and Paris (regency) https://collections.britishart.yale.e... https://www.metmuseum.org/art/librari... HISTORIC MAGAZINES A bit about magazine history: https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_... McCalls (1890s-1920s) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu... Delineator (1880s-1930s) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu... Ladies Home Journal (1880s-1920s) https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu... Beau Monde (regency) https://archive.org/search?query=Beau...[]=collection%3A%22pub_beau-monde-or-literary-and-fashionable-magazine%22 La Belle assemblée (Regency era) https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record... and https://regencyfashion.org/lb.html Lady’s Monthly (Regency) https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record... ART & PORTRAITURE https://historicalportraits.com/ https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/v... https://www.nga.gov/ BLOGS AND WEBSITES http://www.elizabethancostume.net/ List of free historic tailoring books: https://mantuadiary.blogspot.com/2016... https://cottesimple.com/ (Late medieval) https://rosaliegilbert.com/sitemap.html (medieval) https://festiveattyre.com/ https://thepragmaticcostumer.wordpres... https://rococoatelier.blogspot.com/ https://fashion-era.com/ https://janeaustensworld.com/ http://demodecouture.com/ https://www.mimimatthews.com/blog/ https://witness2fashion.wordpress.com/ https://ateliernostalgia.wordpress.co... https://archive.org/ https://www.jstor.org/ Interesting things I found while researching https://www.slam.org/collection/objec... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Harlo... https://www.loc.gov/collections/afric... ** CONNECT ** Follow me on Instagram @dixiediy:   / dixiediy   If you'd like to support the channel, I have a Ko-Fi account: https://ko-fi.com/dixiediy I may not always have time to respond to all comments but know that I do read and appreciate them!