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Fashion

1937 Elsa Schiaparelli art-deco evening coat

Cool Finds

Google Digitizes 3,000 Years of Fashion History

The massive “We Wear Culture Project” includes 30,000 online artifacts from over 180 institutions

Cool Finds

These Sustainable Sneakers Are Made Using Algae

The shoes’ manufacturers harvest harmful algal blooms and turn the goo into footwear

The burial chamber containing the model looms

New Research

Model Looms Are Missing Link in China’s Textile History

Four miniature pattern looms found in a burial in Chengdu show how the Han Dynasty produced cloth to trade on the Silk Road

Clothes from several decades of the show are on display at The George Washington University Museum.

Reliving the Ebony Fashion Fair Off the Runway, One Couture Dress at a Time

An exhibition on the traveling fashion show memorializes the cultural phenomenon that shook up an industry

This dress is made with the power of cow manure.

Cool Finds

Fashion Made From Cow Poo Wins Innovation Award

Mestic looks to manure to produce bioplastic, paper and fashion-forward textiles

What’s the Environmental Footprint of a T-Shirt?

In-depth life cycle analyses are teaching us more about the environmental costs of the things we wear

Before World War II, almost every Dutch village had a wooden shoe maker.

Trending Today

Only 30 Dutch Wooden Shoe Makers Remain

The traditional trade is in trouble

Postmodern Boa by David Gaussoin and Wayne Nez Gaussoin (Diné [Navajo]) and Picuris Pueblo, 2009, stainless steel, sterling silver, enamel paint and feathers

These Designs Showcase the Provocative World of Native Fashion

These contemporary designs by prominent or up-and-coming Native American designers are edgy and pulsing with relevance

Joan Crawford in Letty Lynton (1932)

When Hollywood Glamour Was Sold at the Local Department Store

During the 1930s, the world’s most fashionable looks came not from Paris, but from La-La Land

Channel Parker's vicious wit in the coat she wore for decades.

Cool Finds

Fans of Dorothy Parker Can Pay to Wear Her Mink Coat

It’s all in the name of preservation

At the height of their popularity in the 1950s, children's coonskin caps like this one from the Smithsonian collections, sold at the rate of 5,000 per day.

The Invention of Vintage Clothing

It all began with the Davy Crockett coonskin hat craze and a bunch of Bohemians yearning to swathe themselves in decades-old fur

Clerks (right) will no longer have to wear their distinctive wigs in the House of Commons.

Trending Today

British Parliament Is Losing its Wigs

They’re itchy, formal—and part of centuries of tradition

The little black graphene dress

Trending Today

The LBD Gets an Update With the Debut of the First Dress Made with Graphene

Partially made from the world’s thinnest, strongest material, lights on the dress change color based on the wearer’s breathing rate

Microscope not included.

Cool Finds

This Necklace Contains All of the World’s Languages

Because cultural preservation never goes out of fashion

Capt. (Dr.) Tejdeep Singh Rattan (right) checks in a patient during the triage portion of an exercise during the Basic Officer Leadership Course at Camp Bullis, Texas in 2010. Rattan was the first Sikh allowed to keep his articles of faith while in uniform in 23 years.

Trending Today

Muslim and Sikh Troops Can Now Wear Beards, Turbans and Headscarves

The U.S. Army just changed its grooming regulations to accommodate observant soldiers

Marshall Field's was as much a part of Chicago's soul as the Lakefront and the Cubs.

For Generations of Chicagoans, Marshall Field’s Meant Business, and Christmas

The midwestern mainstay transformed commerce into a communal holiday spectacle

Recycling your trash is all the rage this season.

Meet an Environmental Activist and an Artist Who Share a Passion for “Trashion”

One man’s trash suit is another woman’s work of art

Silkworm cocoons

New Research

Feeding Silkworms Carbon Nanotubes and Graphene Makes Super-Tough Silk

A diet rich in graphene or carbon nanotubes causes the creatures to produce a fiber twice as strong as normal silk

Osgood says he can walk peacefully in total anonymity if he leaves his bow tie at home; but people always make him cakes with bow ties.

Charles Osgood’s Love Affair With the Bow Tie Began With a Dire Warning About Clip-Ons

As one of his iconic bow ties arrives at the Smithsonian, Osgood reflects on good and bad doggerel and how to tie a good knot

Computer image of Triopticus skull overlaid on the field site where it was found.

Paleontologists Probe the Bonehead that Foreshadowed Domed Dinos

This striking skull shape evolved at least twice. But what was its purpose?

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