Digitized historic costume collections: Inspiring the future while preserving the past

Creativity and inspiration are essential elements of the fashion design process. Many historic costume collections were founded specifically to educate and inspire designers and students. While traditional research took a hands-on approach to using these collections, students and designers increasingly rely on the Internet and other digital resources for inspiration. Consequently, to remain relevant, costume collections need to adapt to this new way of conducting research. Several projects, such as the Digital Dress Project, the Drexel Digital Museum Project, and the recently launched searchable catalog of The Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, have advanced this process.