Time Wasting News:
The Met's Costume Institute
Goes Online
In a move sure to excite scholars and vintage clothing afficionados alike, The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art has put its entire collection online in an extensive database available to the public.
In a project begun in 2000, 29,432 objects from the 31,000-piece collection have been digitally cataloged for your perusal, so if you feel like browsing Yves Saint Laurent ensembles from 1976-77 like those at left, they are there for you to examine.
It's not exactly the same as wandering through the Costume Institute's extensive storage rooms (which we have actually done) but it's fascinating nonetheless.
The Institute's recent “blog.mode: addressing fashion” exhibition showed the curators that they had a substantial online audience around the world, so as a part of a routine redocumentation of the entire collection, the updated information was put online in keeping with the entire museum's goal to have all of it's holdings digitally documented and available to the public.
The information will be updated periodically as it is an ongoing process, but that's the curator's job. All you have to do is log on and surf through the decades of fashion.
Want to see their entire collection of Galanos or Stephen Sprouse or Mary McFadden? It's only a click away.
Costume Institute Database Goes Online (WWD)
The Costume Institute Collection Database (MetMuseum.org)
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