In American Fashion: Ruth Finley’s Fashion Calendar

In American Fashion is the first scholarly analysis of the Fashion Calendar, the unique scheduling service and trade publication for the American fashion and creative industries between 1941 and 2014.

Published by Ruth Finley for almost seven decades, the Calendar had an extensive impact on the development of the American fashion industry in the 20th century. Unlike European fashion capitals, the American fashion industry relied on an independent small publisher to manage the schedule of an ever-growing industry. In American Fashion shows how this independent position influenced the democratic approach reflected in the industry in the United States. Finley’s unique contribution to the development of the time-system and culture of American fashion made her a key player during the ascendency of American fashion design.

Natalie Nudell unveils the Fashion Calendar as a historical archive, and also looks at its development into an open-source digital humanities project (to be released in November 2023). Through historical analysis and the upcoming digitization of the Ruth Finley Collection, this study unpacks the history and impact of the publication and the women behind it.

Natalie Nudell is a fashion and textile historian with a focus on the American fashion industry and the Fashion Calendar. She is Adjunct Assistant Professor in the History of Art Department at the Fashion Institute of Technology, SUNY, is Co-Principal Investigator of ＂Ruth Finley Collection: Digitizing 70 Years of the Fashion Calendar,＂ and wrote and produced the feature documentary ＂Calendar Girl＂ (2020).