Fashion Terms — the Apparel Search fashion terminology directory
A database is an organized collection of data, typically organized around a particular subject or multiple subjects. A fashion database applies that organization to fashion: collections of companies, products, styles, trends, images or market figures, structured so the information can be searched and used instead of merely stored.
What is a database?
A database is an organized collection of data. The data is typically organized based on a particular subject or multiple subjects.
What is a fashion database?
A “fashion database” is one that collects, organizes, and displays information regarding apparel, shoes, and/or fashion accessories. It may possibly include information regarding fabrics, textile fibers, machinery, trimming components (hangers, buttons, sewing threads, hangtags, labels), etc. An industry specific database may include information about service providers in addition to products.
How to manage a database?
Typically a fashion database will utilize some sort of management system. Database management systems are computer software applications that interact with the user, other applications, and the database itself to capture and analyze the data. A general-purpose DBMS is designed to allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of databases.
Apparel Search can be considered a fashion industry database because the site collects and displays information on the subject of our industry. However, as of April 2015, the site does not utilize a typical database management system. Our systems and processes will most likely change in the future. To see one of company sites that does use a database system (as of 2015), you can view the Clothing Industry Directory website.
Well-known DBMSs include MySQL, PostgreSQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase and IBM DB2. A database is not generally portable across different DBMSs, but different DBMS can interoperate by using standards such as SQL and ODBC or JDBC to allow a single application to work with more than one DBMS. Database management systems are often classified according to the database model that they support; the most popular database systems since the 1980s have all supported the relational model as represented by the SQL language. Sometimes a DBMS is loosely referred to as a 'database'.
Below are a few resources that we think use databases to collect fashion industry information and resources:
https://www.fitnyc.edu/index.php (student access only)
https://libguides.library.kent.edu/c.php?g=278129
https://www.bloomsburyfashioncentral.com/
You can also check the clothing manufactures database page for additional examples.
If you are aware of more educational information on this subject, please let us know so that we can update this page.
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Different fashion databases organize different slices of the industry. Product databases hold styles with their sizes, colors, prices and images — the backbone of e-commerce. Company databases hold manufacturers, brands and retailers with their categories and contacts, which is the kind Apparel Search publishes. Trend and image databases archive runway photographs and street style by season, designer and garment type, letting researchers search the visual record of fashion.
Data is only useful at the speed it can be found. Consistent category names, cleaned duplicates and current records are what separate a database from an archive dump — the same editorial work that keeps a directory honest. Fashion by numbers, the previous entry in spirit if not in alphabet, is the analytical side of the same idea: once fashion information is structured, it can be counted, compared and forecast.
An organized collection of data, arranged by subject so that items can be found, sorted and compared — the difference between a searchable system and a pile of records.
A database whose subject is fashion: directories of fashion companies, catalogs of products and styles, image libraries, trend archives and market data sets used by the industry.
Apparel Search is a hand-built directory of the fashion industry; its company listings in the Names section and its terms directories function as a public fashion database readers can browse by category and letter.