Design & Merchandising: Museums and Research Institutes

The Getty Research Institute provides free access to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and the Répertoire international de la littérature de l'art (RILA). This index covers articles on American and European visual arts and is available without a subscription.

This Berlin museum and research center traces the influential twentieth-century Bauhaus school of architecture, art and design, and includes collections of work by many of the school's renowned teachers. (The site is available in German and English.)

The museum has one of the world's largest collections of costume and textile artifacts, from the mid-18th century to the present. There is a browsable digital collection.

Smithsonian Museum of historical and contemporary design.

UK-focused

Located in Los Angeles and part of an endorsed fashion design school, this museum features a historic textile/costume collection as well as a museum blog.

The FIT maintains a Museum with some 50,000 items dating from the 16th century to the present, emphasizing contemporary fashion.

An institution well known for its and collections, especially ethnographic textiles.

Located in the heart of Washington, D.C., the George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum celebrates the creative achievements of local and global cultures from antiquity through today. The museum unites The Textile Museum, established in 1925, and the Albert H. Small Center for National Capital Area Studies to engage the university and the wider community through collections, scholarship, exhibitions, and educational programs.

The Costume Institute "houses a collection ...representing five continents and seven centuries of fashionable dress, regional costumes, and accessories for men, women, and children, from the fifteenth century to the present." The Institute presents special exhibitions and houses a premier costume reference library.

One of the world's foremost museums, MoMA has extensive collections for art, architecture and design.

A part of the Smithsonian Institution, the NMAH holds extensive resources on clothing and its relation to other aspects of American life from the 17th century to the present.

A research consortium established by eight universities: Auburn, Clemson, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, North Carolina State University, the University of California at Davis, the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, and the Philadelphia University. The consortium's stated mission is "to enhance the knowledge base for the continuing viability of the U.S. Fiber/Textile/Fiber Products/Retail complex."

An international museum in Leiden whose aim "is to give the study of textiles, clothing and accessories their proper place in the field of the humanities and social sciences."

Located in London, the Victoria and Albert Museum is one of the world's leaders in art and design.