Thursday, February 24, 2011

Fashionistas check this out


Nina Ricci, Guy Laroche, and Yves St. Laurent are just some of the top designers making up a veritable who's who of fashion at the London College of Fashion's Woolmark Company Collection. These 'cool' wool fashions may no longer be on the catwalk but they can be seen online via the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS).

This week over 2000 newly digitised images have been launched online which complement these vintage fashions by key couturiers. These newly digitised images include examples from the ready-to-wear market by manufacturers such as British Home Stores, Berkertex, Windsmoor, Susan Small, and Marks & Spencer, as well as including more examples by top designers such as Mary Quant and Christian Dior.

The black and white photographs date from the 1940's through to the early 1980's and capture both the fashion of the time and the style of photography. The press releases, which in some cases are still attached to the photographs, give additional information about the garments, designers, manufacturers, photographers and any points of interest reflecting the promotional style and language of the time. All of the images were generously donated to the London College of Fashion from The International Wool Secretariat, now The Woolmark Company.

VADS now provides access to over 4,800 images from the Woolmark Company collection, which complements a number of other London College of Fashion collections already available online including its College Archive, Paper Patterns Collection, Cordwainer’s Shoe Collection, and Gala Cosmetics Archive.

For more information about the London College of Fashion’s Woolmark Company collection see http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/LCFWOOL.html

VADS offers over 120,000 fully cross-searchable images which are free to use and copyright cleared for learning, teaching, and research.

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