What's that called again, you know, that thing?

One of the biggest problems you might come across in costume design is actually in your verbal communication.  That is because, for the most part, there is not a universal language to describe different pieces of clothing.  Some terms we have in common, but others are dependent on the region the item in question is from.  Maybe you are studying costume history and you have a different text book from what a coworker studied.  This has been an ongoing problem in the museum world so ICOM, the International Committee for the Museums and Collections of Costume has put out a web page that addresses this problem.  Their Vocabulary of Basic Terms for Cataloguing Costume is broken down into women's, men's, and infant's clothing and is available in three languages (French, German, and English).  Clicking on a topic will show you basic terminology as well as a simple diagram of the specific item.