One thing I'm really struggling with in my writing is describing people's clothes. Most things like the names of different types of clothing, fabric and such usually comes up in every day conversation with friends, and since I am a Norwegian, that means I haven't gotten to learn most of these yet. Sure, it comes up a lot in books, but I've never been able to retain that sort of information just from reading a book since I can't see the clothing. So basically, my descriptions often end up being overly long and hard to read since instead of just using the word for the type of clothes a character is wearing, or the name of the cloth the clothes are made of, I have to fully describe how it looks, and it just feels like something that most readers will get annoyed by. (I know I do...) I know some people like it when character descriptions are super vague when it comes to looks, and I agree for the most part, but there are scenes and situations - as well as spesific characters - where the reader having a good idea of how the character is supposed to look like is, in my opinion, crucial. So do any of you guys know of a resource I can use to become more familiar with this stuff?
Both would do, since I write things that take place in all kinds of time-periods. But, at the moment I could really use some modern day stuff.
You could try typing in new/current fashion trends or 2016 trends in fashion in Google. I usually use Pinterest and then when I see something I like I follow the links to the articles. Or I look up things on Ebay by date or key phrases like trendy, chic, romantic, edgy, stylish, steampunk, gothic, urban street style etc. but I don't know of any specific sites - unless they're things like Vogue, sorry.
I'm assuming that you want to be able to say " A silk brocade swallowtail coat, lined with iridescent chiffon", that sort of thing? (Glurp. Now I'm envisioning that, and the iridescence looks dreadful.) For fabrics, there are several fabric guides aimed at people who sew. If I go to Amazon and search for fabric guide sewing several come up. And if you search for costume dictionary a fair number of books about fashion come up, that I suspect will have lists of garments.
I agree that investing in a good sewing instructional book might be a good idea or perhaps researching online or at your library the fabric timeline.