ARTIFACT

Nudell and Finley at the CFDA Awards, 2016. Photo by Mary Hackley.

For 70 years, Ruth Finley’s weekly Fashion Calendar served as the scheduling bible for the American fashion industry. Now, thanks to the efforts of History of Art faculty member Natalie Nudell, this valuable resource has been reborn as an innovative digital research tool.

Launched in November 2023, the Fashion Calendar Research Database (FCRD) is the culmination of a three-year collaboration between Nudell, FIT’s School of Liberal Arts, and the Gladys Marcus Library Special Collections team. Finley donated over 3,000 issues of the calendar, which ran from 1941 to 2014, to the college in 2015. All 39,000 pages have now been digitized, made fully searchable, and are available open-source to download for free.

“Ruth was my mentor; we were really close,” says Nudell, who also wrote and produced Calendar Girl (2022), a documentary about Finley (1920-2018).

LEFT: Alum Michael Kors first appeared in the calendar on Aug., 1983. RIGHT: The database provides access to information about significant historical events, such as the debut showing of designer Stephen Burrows ’66, in the August 10, 1970 issue. Images courtesy of the Fashion Calendar Research Database.

Nudell faced a massive hurdle in how to effectively organize and present decades’ worth of data from the publication (famously printed on pink paper). After months of research, with support from Joseph Anderson, FIT’s digital initiatives librarian, her team discovered AI tools able to extract relevant information, allowing for a better search function. The project was supported by a $183,750 grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (funded by the Mellon Foundation). Nudell unveiled the database last November at the Archiving Fashion Conference, hosted by FIT, which brought together librarians, researchers and other professionals to discuss the future of fashion- and textile-related material in archives.

“Finley embodied the spirit of the American fashion industry during the 20th century,” Nudell says. She hopes that access to the database will inspire new research and academic study building upon Finley’s pioneering legacy and life’s work. “There is something here for every single person to explore and utilize.” Since the FCRD’s launch, it has had 78,000 page views and 5,300 unique visitors from around the world. 

In September, Nudell published a book, In American Fashion (Bloomsbury), about Finley and the calendar. “She wasn’t a gatekeeper,” Nudell says. “She allowed young designers to list their first events for free. She taught me the benefit of sharing information and letting people use it in their own ways.”  

Visit the database: fashioncalendar.fitnyc.edu