Digital Costumes
A database of the collection, with both text and images, has been under development since 2002, and was made available to the Vassar community in the fall of 2008. We are in the process of expanding the data and images that are included, and we began in the spring of 2011 to make it available to the general public via the internet.
The VCCC was featured in a recent workshop at Vassar entitled “Digital Objects in the Classroom,” for participants from across the country to examine best practice in the use of digital collections as a teaching resource, in a variety of disciplines. That workshop gave us the opportunity to connect with other costume collections that provide digital access to their collections, including Drexel and Cornell, and we hope to someday unite many costume collection databases into one web resource for easy searching and comparison.
Researchers use the database to focus their research, then access the physical objects once they have narrowed down their choices, resulting in less handling of the fragile objects. One use of the collection is to select objects as design inspiration for costumes in a period play. Nothing can replace the hands on experience of viewing a garment inside and out to see how it was constructed, but digital media can help preserve that view for future reference when physical access is limited.
Visit us online at:
or email us at costumeshop@vassar.edu