Natalie Nudell believes that diversity is fundamental to fashion, and she has the data to prove it. As part of her work as a historian of fashion and textiles, Nudell has built an interactive database based on the archives of the Fashion Calendar, a weekly trade publication that tracked the industry from 1941 to 2014. 

This unique collection, called the Fashion Calendar Research Database (FCRD), consists of seven decades of minute-by-minute events related to fashion. These listings contain detailed information about thousands of people, organizations, and companies who engaged with the fashion and creative market during those years, many of whom were immigrants. 

“The application of these digital technologies and the possibilities of generating data helps reveal and quantify the presence and impact of women, immigrants, and many different communities who have shaped the industry,” says Nudell. “Further, with details and information about the social events and fundraisers listed in the Calendar we get a picture of the causes, community-driven priorities, and more that immigrants contributed to.”

Telling a More Complete Story

Nudell, herself an immigrant from Canada, was first given access to the Fashion Calendar archive when it was donated to Special Collections and College Archives (SPARC) by its creator, Ruth Finley, in 2014 after the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) acquired the publication. Since the calendar represents the most complete record of the American fashion and creative industries during that period, it compiles an array of information that would be challenging to trace any other way. 

Armed with decades of information, Nudell set out to use this data to create an archive that more accurately represented the contributions of immigrants and other historically underrepresented groups. But there was one complication: Many immigrants and their descendants face pressure to assimilate into the societies they inhabit, which can contribute to their experiences and contributions being hidden in the historical record. 

For example, Nudell notes in her book In American Fashion that name changing was common in the 1940s for many immigrants to better assimilate to American culture. Even Finley changed her name from Finberg due to rampant anti-Semitism. This practice further complicates inconsistencies in how immigrants self-identify and how different search engines tag or catalogue individuals. However, it is well documented that the majority of garment workers and others who labored in the fashion and creative industries came from immigrant and marginalized communities. 

Looking Beyond the Data

Nudell began investigating ways to use this data set to reveal more about the individuals. She held numerous focus groups and researched concepts that challenge the normalized vocabularies used to categorize information, which impacts how researchers, students, and the public engage with information.

“Informed by my findings, I developed a methodology whereby names and entities listed in the publication were digitally tagged with modular identity categories based on information from primary and secondary sources,” Nudell explains. “Thus, an already very rich archive was transformed into a powerful tool to trace participation of individuals, communities, and different demographic groups, which informs the culture of the fashion community.”

FCRD users can now refine their searches by using the word “immigrant” to access listings associated with individuals or companies founded by immigrants to the United States. The database’s visualization tools also allow this information to be represented through graphs, charts, and interactive maps. Modular tags related to identity, country of origin, time period, and other relevant categories can also be added to searches to further locate specific data. These capabilities help uncover broader historical, economic, and labor trends, highlighting the active engagement of immigrants within the American fashion industry.

Additionally, the social listings of events and causes included in the Fashion Calendar reveal the strong ties between philanthropic initiatives supported by the fashion industry and the immigrant communities that composed much of its workforce.

Nudell says that her passion for her work is inextricably tied to her own family’s immigrant background. 

“Not only am I an immigrant to the U.S., both of my parents and sets of grandparents were immigrants to Canada,” Nudell says. “My father was born in Poland to Holocaust survivors from Poland and Ukraine, and my mother was born in Israel to Iraqi and Libyan refugees. My experience of immigration informs all of my work, both in enriching my understanding of the challenges immigrants face, and also making me more sensitive to how immigrants, and the impacts of displacement, are often hidden within the historical record due to the impulse to assimilate.”