This is a fascinating opportunity to combine visual and material sources to investigate conflict between fashion as a choice and an imposition in the colonial Americas. There is also opportunity to apply your material evidence to racial tensions today.

In this blog, I’d like to list possible avenues of research that you might find to be interesting additions to your projects. All the resources that I list are easily accessible online.

Clothing in Colonial America, The Smithsonian Lab

Costume Collection, The Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg

Indigenous American Textiles, The Textile Museum, The George Washington University Museum

Visual Culture in Spanish America, Fordham University

Collections, Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York

Weaving Communities of Practice, Centre for Iberian and Latin American Visual Studies, Birkbeck, University of London

‘Chola style – the latest cultural appropriation fashion crime?’, The Guardian

‘The Folk Feminist Struggle Behind the Chola Fashion Trend’, VICE

This is certainly not an exhaustive list, but an indication of the huge range of resources available to you, in addition to those provided by your seminar tutor. I hope you find plenty of inspiration for your project!