In 2013 a new research institute or ‘Arts Lab’ was set up at the University of Manchester. The John Rylands Research Institute (JRRI), based in the John Rylands Library, is a unique partnership between the University of Manchester (UofM) Library and the Faculty of Humanities at the university. Its aim is to establish an internationally renowned centre for research that attracts, and supports work by local, national, or international scholars on the library's special collections. By bringing together a multi-disciplinary team of library professionals, humanities scholars, students and scientists, new approaches are being developed within the JRRI to increase and improve our understanding of these collections, in all their richness and diversity. This piece will provide insights into the work of the JRRI and through a specific case study it will demonstrate how some of the works of art in the library are beginning to benefit from the research carried out under its umbrella. However, it is first necessary to explain why these collections merit such intensive investigation.

The subject of this article is Europeana Fashion, an EU-funded initiative that deals with the aggregation and online dissemination of the digital fashion heritage from the most important European collections. The project started with a consortium consisting of 22 partners from 12 European countries and included the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), Les Arts Décoratifs (Paris), MoMu (Antwerp) and many other museums. Also archives of brands, such as Missoni and Pucci were represented. The main goal of Europeana Fashion was to harvest the digital collections of fashion institutions and to re-present them in a uniform way on a specialized fashion portal. This article outlines the origins of the project, focussing on its main achievements, and offers a look into the future of europeanafashion.eu.

What can an institutional archive tell us about the history of fashion education? The Royal College of Art's archive, in documenting the legacy of study and practice at the college, a key focal point of fashion education since 1948, illuminates in diverse ways the establishment and development of fashion design as an academic discipline. The print and digital collections in the RCA archive thus provide a rich resource that informs both contemporary practice and historical research, highlighting in addition issues raised by the increasingly digital access to this documentation for the archivist and the research community.

The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT)-SUNY Gladys Marcus Library's exquisite, rare, primary research materials are housed in its unit of Special Collections and College Archives; as such, it is known to those who study fashion and other creative industries throughout the world.

Like the unit's name, its mission is two-fold: regarding special collections, it acquires, preserves, and provides access to a wide range of primary research materials in their original formats and across many languages and geographical spectra. All acquisitions support one or more curricula offered at FIT. Regarding the college archives, the unit acquires, preserves, and provides access to college records permanently-scheduled for retention, or deemed to have enduring, historical value, created or received in the course of college business; archival records are created or received by administrators, staff, faculty, and students. Fulfilling this mission supports myriad goals in and across FIT units as well as research from those outside the FIT community.

This writer will introduce the collections to readers and briefly discuss the large-scale renovation that the unit is currently under-going.

Introduced in 1947 as an event during Charities Week, the Glasgow School of Art (GSA) Fashion Show provided an opportunity to present student designs and fundraise around the City of Glasgow. Over the years, the format, location and emphasis of the event have changed, although creativity, collaboration, team working and the Students Union remain central to organization. To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the fashion show, the development of this event has recently been re-visited and an exhibition developed. This project posed the questions: What GSA Archives and Collections’ holdings relate to the event? Are there gaps within the collection and if so can items be accessioned? What can be understood about the evolution of the GSA fashion show from this material? Is there potential for further research from this local event? These questions form the basis of this article.

Although many fashion archives find it challenging to accurately represent their collections in a digital format, the task the Yorkshire Fashion Archive faced when creating their first electronic catalogue was uniquely difficult, as their collection spans far more than garments. As an archive that aims to represent socio-cultural history through clothing, it also collects oral histories, personal photographs and ephemera related to the garments from the original owners. While putting this information together into one digital record presented challenges, this also provided opportunities preserve the remembered history of the fashionable history of the Yorkshire region, alongside the objects and ephemera in the collection, to create a textually rich electronic archive.

In the last third of the 19th century, Berlin was the undisputed capital of the German clothing and fashion industry on an international scale. Several publishing houses specialized in the production of fashion magazines for different target groups. One of the success stories in this context is that of the publisher Franz Lipperheide and his wife Frieda. In 1865, they founded their own company, publishing the journal Die Modenwelt: Illustrirte Zeitung für Toilette und Handarbeiten. This journal quickly became the most-read fashion journal in Berlin. By the company's 25th anniversary in 1890, a total of 12 international editions of the journal was published with around 500,000 subscribers. The economic success of their company allowed the Lipperheides to create extensive private collections that reflected their deep interest in cultural-historical topics as well as textile art.

This paper focuses on their collection of source material for costume studies, which is now known as the ‘Sammlung Modebild—Lipperheidesche Kostümbibliothek’ (Fashion Image Collection—Lipperheide Costume Library), a department of the Kunstbibliothek at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. The paper presents its history, some collection highlights and the various means of access (catalogues, exhibition catalogues and online access).

The Centre for Fashion Studies was established at Stockholm University in Sweden, in July 2006 through a generous donation from the Erling Persson Family Foundation, connected to clothing manufacturer H&M.

Fashion Studies at Stockholm University is an independent, theoretical discipline with an interdisciplinary approach looking at the past, present and future, and it includes different areas of critical discourse within the humanities and social sciences. Stockholm University Library plays a key role in research and education conducted at the university, and the library works in close collaboration with all disciplines to provide adequate support to researchers and students in a rapidly changing information society. In this article I will focus on and describe the process of acquiring fashion literature at Stockholm University Library from 2006–2013.