All posts by tinatran

Area Studies, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: The Clothes We Wear and the Stories Behind Them

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Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from UTL’s Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship.  Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of and future creative contributions to the growing fields of digital scholarship.

We Wear Culture was started in 2017 as a global initiative that brings together the stories of fashion evolution in one place. This digital project is a global initiative that brings thousands of stories together, delving into apparel that we wear now and how it relates to costume history, culture, and trends. It was produced by Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with existing digital and physical collections worldwide. “We Wear Culture” partners with more than 180 museums and similar institutions including prestigious names like The Kyoto Costume Institute and The MET. The research ranges from iconic pieces that have grown to wardrobe staples, such as Coco Chanel’s little black dress, or broad fashion movements, like the evolution of shoemaking as a craft.

A map depicting the locations of global collections in collaboration with “We Wear Culture”.

The digitized research contents of “We Wear Culture” are separated into four different themes:

  • The icons – The famous faces and designers that changed the way we dress
  • The movements – From the court at Versailles to the streets of Tokyo
  • The making of – The craft and stories behind what you wear
  • The arts (my personal favorite) – Fashion’s long-term relationship with the arts

The platform allows me to explore curated themes through a vibrant interface. Each theme acts as a gateway to a variety of resources—articles, videos, digital exhibits, and archival images—organized into subcategories that encourage engagement. The layout is designed to foster curiosity, with visuals and clear text that make navigation easy and discovery accessible.

For example, within the Fashion + Arts theme, the story “Journeys into Textile and Identity” offers a compelling look at South African contemporary artists (example demonstrated in the image above) who conceptualize works that marry their heritage with fashion materials. Their work draws on South African textiles and techniques, reinterpreting them in ways that portray a visual historical narrative, drawing on personal and collective experiences of the present and past.

At the very bottom of the main homepage is a section that has pre-made lesson plans, targeted towards teachers and parents of future fashionistas who may want to learn more information about the fashion industry, its history, and related heritage. These plans serve as open education resources and each individual lesson encourages students to immerse themselves in the subject and view design from different perspectives.

Whether you’re browsing for inspiration or conducting focused research, “We Wear Culture” makes it effortless to connect with stories that span creative visual disciplines, geographies, and generations.

Want to learn more about fashion in relation to art history or global studies? Check out these resources from the UT Libraries:

Bellet, A. (2024). New approaches to decolonizing fashion history and period styles : Re-fashioning pedagogies. (1st Ed.). Routledge.

Geczy, A. & Karaminas, V. (2021). Fashion and art. (1st Ed.). Berg.

Hill, C. (2021). Reinvention & restlessness : fashion in the nineties. Rizzoli Electa

Steele, V. (2023). Shoes A-Z : The collection of the museum at FIT. Taschen.

Way, E. (2024). Africa’s fashion diaspora. Yale University Press.

Benson Latin American Collection, Fine Arts Library, Outreach, Zines

Another Successful Year at Lone Star Zine Fest

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The UT Libraries tabled at the 8th Annual Lone Star Zine Fest on October 19th and 20th. We Librarians were able to connect with the local community of zinesters through outreach as well as purchasing new materials for the collection.

What is a zine? To put it simply, a zine is a DIY publication, traditionally made on printer paper, meant to spread awareness of a particular issue or to find certain communities that share the same interests. Historically, zines have been used to bypass the barriers of traditional publishing, making them a speedy and inexpensive way to share information utilizing print materials.

The Blue Genie Art Bazaar (the site chosen to host the fest) was filled to the brim with zines that October Weekend. With over 100 vendors, we zine librarians had our work cut out for us. Not only did we table at the fest to promote UT’s free-to-read zine collection, we also prepared for purchasing and were eager to find new titles to add to the stacks.

Tabling at the fest brought a few new challenges. Last year’s fest ran for one day, while this year it grew into two. This is due to the huge success of the previous year’s event, with over 1000 people attending the fest. We spread the word to the UT Libraries community and received interest from fellow staff and graduate research assistants in assisting us with our outreach efforts. Having volunteers as extra eyes at the event proved to be more helpful than we thought. They brought back fabulous purchase suggestions as they perused the vendors throughout the building.

With pen and paper in hand, we scoured the building looking for locally-made zines that would add oomph to our current collection, such as comic zines for the Fine Arts Library and chapbooks for the PCL Poetry Center. We also looked for zines on topics that would resonate with students and could be added to our teaching toolkit for zine workshops we hold periodically throughout the year. Two of our favorite vendors – Chan Channel and Table for Two Publications – are alumni from the College of Fine Arts who often visited the Fine Arts Library. They were excited to meet us and thrilled to have their work represented in our zine collection for future art and design students. All in all, we purchased over 100 zines at the fest for the Libraries!

Our outreach at the Lone Star Zine Fest was a major success. We talked to over 400 attendees about the collection, surprising many with the fact that the UT Libraries are open to the public. Many expressed interest in visiting campus (we look forward to seeing y’all)! This concludes our sixth year tabling at the fest and we hope to continue to do so for many years to come.

Are you interested in learning more about the UT Zine Collection? Please visit our LibGuide here.

Global Studies, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: The Complex History of Bananas Depicted in Artistic Works

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Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from UTL’s Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship.  Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of and future creative contributions to the growing fields of digital scholarship.

The banana has been used in many forms of art, ranging from paintings to sculpture, and demonstrated its popularity in iconography throughout the years. Why are bananas so popular, both as a fruit and as a modern emoji? One digital exhibit seeks to spread context behind the banana by organizing visual depictions of the fruit through Latin American artworks.

Banana Craze, a bilingual digital research project created by Juanita and Blanca Solano and translated by Banana Link, showcases the dark past and present of the banana industry, and how it has shaped the regions affected by the plantations. The database is available for viewing in both Spanish and English.

Before the globalization of the banana, the fruit itself was hardly eaten outside of its native regions. As the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita) established plantations throughout Latin American countries and the Caribbean, bananas became a monoculture industry in itself, now being the number one sold fruit around the world.

The Banana Craze website itself is not only a visual spectacle, but it also features organizational tools so that the viewer can dive deeper into individual artists as well as explore the art on a timeline to provide historical context. For example, the images of this gold leafed banana plant can be found in Mariá José Argerenzio’s entry in the alphabetized index. Maria is an Ecuadorian artist who created the installation to emphasize the extraction of two major resources from Ecuador, bananas and gold, linking Spanish empire colonialism to more modern day practices that exacerbate the region’s environmental health and disparities in wealth.

The viewer can also explore the artworks by other subcategories, such as violences, ecosystems, and country location. Violences is one of the three thematic ways to view the website through the curatorial lenses of the exhibit creators. This framework exercises the function of a digital art exhibit, allowing viewers to explore the history of banana culture with selected artworks.

Building such an interactive online exhibit requires the use of a digital tool that is catered to accessible viewership. The meticulous metadata for each artwork blends seamlessly with each page, allowing me to search and view specific content, while keeping me immersed in the overall project. The multipage exhibits provide context and can function either as a digital archive or art database, depending on how I chose to begin my journey. I appreciated that I can view all the images and documents on the site without downloading any attachments. This provided for a seamless viewing experience.

The exhibit was a visual feast for the eyes. Its contrasting colors are electrifying, almost bordering on jarring, and produces an effective look as I went on to view the art and how they symbolize the practices that have affected the people, the land, and the traditions of Latin America and beyond.

Want to learn more about the history of bananas or protest art? Check out these resources from the UT Libraries:

D’Souza, A., Bright, P., & Lumumba, P. (2018). Whitewalling : art, race & protest in 3 acts. Badlands Unlimited.

Fassio, D., Seuret, F., & Abita, V. (2010). Banana wars: A presentation of Films for the Humanities & Sciences. Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

Koeppel, D. (2008). Banana : The fate of the fruit that changed the world. Hudson Street Press.

Mercurio, G., & Banksy. (2020). A visual protest : the art of Banksy. (English edition.). Prestel.

Portillo Villeda, S. G. (2021). Roots of resistance : A story of gender, race, and labor on the north coast of Honduras. (1st Ed.). University of Texas Press.

Tags: art, history, food

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This is a fun blog post and a quirky yet incredible important interventional art project. Great work bringing it to everyone’s attention through this post, Tina!

Humanities & Liberal Arts, Read Hot and Digitized

Read, Hot and Digitized: Fashion History Timeline — Dress Across the Ages

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Read, hot & digitized: Librarians and the digital scholarship they love — In this series, librarians from the UT Libraries Arts, Humanities and Global Studies Engagement Team briefly present, explore and critique existing examples of digital scholarship. Our hope is that these monthly reviews will inspire critical reflection of, and future creative contributions to, the growing fields of digital scholarship.

The Fashion History Timeline is an online, open access resource that seamlessly marries dress history with modern technology, offering users an interactive and engaging way to explore the world of art and fashion. Its roots started in art history, when Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) faculty and students developed a pilot project in 2015, aiming to make fashion history accessible to everyone, regardless of background or prior knowledge. This innovative platform boasts an array of features that redefine how we learn about and appreciate costume throughout the ages.

Screenshot depicting both menswear and womenswear in the early 1900’s.

For example, if I were curious about western garments in the early 1900’s, I would simply click on the appropriate time period, which is available in the main drop down menu. The page features an overview of styles worn and when scrolling further, displays recommendations for primary or secondary sources to further my research. The site also offers articles dedicated to both historical dress in BIPOC and LGBTQ+ cultures. Contributors to Fashion History Timeline range from academic professionals and experts within the fashion and art history fields around the world.

Screenshot showing the visual appearance of Fashion History Timeline’s source database.

One of Fashion History Timeline’s standout features is its reliance on and promotion of published writings.  For example, the source database, a curated annotated bibliography wherein users can dive into citations for a vast bibliographic list of textbooks, catalogs, and monographs that span across time and cultures. I found this to be helpful for digital research, with these particular sources being used as foundational pieces in building the database. The visual approach with information transforms the learning experience, allowing users to gain a deeper understanding of the context and significance attributed to each source. In addition, the website also has a Zotero database, where students and researchers can draw information as well as contribute to the wealth of bibliographic information. The sources are organized in a similar manner as the Fashion History Timeline website, emphasizing cohesion as a goal across the indexing.

As a former apparel design student, I would have loved to explore the Fashion History Timeline in my time as an undergrad. I highly recommend researchers, sewists, and anyone who is interested in costuming to utilize it. Comprehensive images and information for fashion history are not always easy to come by and this database fulfills a longtime need for accessible, reliable information about dress.

Want to learn more about fashion history? Check out these resources from the UT Libraries:

Cumming, V., Cunnington, C. W., & Cunnington, P. E. (2000). The dictionary of fashion history (2nd Ed.). Bloomsbury Academic.

Mahawatte, R., & Willson, J. (Eds.). (2023). Dangerous bodies: New global perspectives on fashion and transgression. Springer International Publishing.

Sposito, S. (2021). Fashion – the ultimate history of costume: From prehistory to the present (2nd Ed.). (K. Krell, Trans.). Promopress.

Want to get started on using Zotero? Check out this LibGuide about citation managers.