Research – just the word alone can make some costumers’ hearts flutter, while others’ sink. For some, it represents an irritating waste of time, blocking the creation process, while others find creative inspiration and satisfaction in getting it “just right.”

This series of articles will set out to achieve a few different things. First, for those who are new to historical research, or can’t stand it, we’ll discuss why you should consider doing research, and some resources and techniques that will hopefully make the process more efficient (and therefore, a bit less painful). For those who love it, we’ll get into many advanced resources and techniques that will bump your research knowledge and skills up to the next level.

It's All Online - Right?

Wrong, wrong, wrong. One of the biggest myths of our current era is that, "Everything is available online."

There is indeed a great deal of research you can do online. But if only rely on online sources, and particularly if you only rely on the websites created by other costumers, you are looking at a fraction of the information commonly and easily available to you.

In part three of her four part series, Kendra van Cleave shows us some tips and techniques to find good information on the Internet.

This month, she adds books, journals and conferences to our arsenal of resources, recommending the most useful ones, showing us how best to use them, and telling us what to look out for.

This month Kendra van Cleave completes her series from earlier in the year with a discussion of how to go about using original sources.

What you specifically look for will depend on your own research aims, but all of these and more can provide incredibly valuable information about costume. Even better, they provide the thrill of holding, reading, and/or looking at a piece of history in your hands, and are the tools that will enable you to take your costumes beyond the standard secondary sources to which everyone has access!