TFC: Bridging academic and popular understandings of fashion history through research and programming.

The Texas Fashion Collection in the College of Visual Arts and Design at the University of North Texas is a unique repository documenting high fashion and style and one of the most acclaimed educational resources at the university. These dress artifacts were collected by various notable groups and individuals whose taste and connoisseurship continue to inspire students, researchers and visitors.

In the TFC, 1,400 pairs of shoes, 2,500 hats and 750 handbags are gathered within UNT's nearly 20,000-piece collection from five continents. As D Magazine's November 2019 cover story details, UNT is home to “a trove of designer labels including 387 designs by Hubert Givenchy, 301 by Oscar de la Renta, 151 from the House of Dior and an impressive 340 by Cristobal Balenciaga.” Originally started by the Dallas-based department store Neiman Marcus in the late 1930s, UNT became the custodian of a few thousand garments via a 1972 donation to support design research at UNT and today is a valuable historical resource for researchers and students. About 90 percent of the collection, which also was covered recently by Denton County magazine, Page 38, came from individual donors, most with connections to North Texas.

Discover more about the collection by attending our on-campus events and off-site exhibitions. You can also explore from home, with access to over 10,000 records and more than 66,000 images of TFC holdings available through the Texas Fashion Collection section of the UNT Digital Library.

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