There is a long historical tradition of research on Inuit clothing across many fields. Since Europeans first made contact with the Inuit in the 16th century, documentation and research on Inuit clothing has included artistic depictions, academic writing, studies of effectiveness, and museum collections. Historically, European images of Inuit were sourced from the clothing worn by Inuit who travelled to Europe (whether voluntarily or as captives), clothing brought to museums by explorers, and from written accounts of travels to the Arctic.
From the 18th century until the mid-20th century, explorers, missionaries, and academic researchers described the Inuit clothing system in numerous memoirs and dissertations. After a decline in the 1940s, serious scholarship of Inuit clothing did not pick up again until the 1980s, at which time the focus shifted to in-depth studies of the clothing of specific Inuit and Arctic groups, as well as academic collaborations with Inuit and their communities. Scientific analysis of Inuit garments have often focused on the effectiveness of Inuit skin clothing as cold-weather clothing. Many museums, particularly in Canada, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and the United States, have extensive collections of historical Inuit garments, often acquired during Arctic explorations undertaken in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Painting, printing, and photography
Inuit skin clothing has long been of interest to artists and academics of all kinds. Europeans interested in the Inuit and their culture began to create artistic depictions of Inuit clothing as early as the 16th century. These images were typically sourced from the clothing worn by Inuit who travelled to Europe (whether voluntarily or as captives), clothing brought to museums by explorers, and from written accounts of travels to the Arctic. The earliest of these was a series of illustrated broadsides printed after an Inuit mother and child from Labrador were brought to the European Low Countries in 1566. In 1577, the privateer Martin Frobisher brought three Inuit – Kalicho, Arnaq and Nutaaq – to England as captives, and the painter John White produced detailed watercolor portraits of them. A 1654 painting by Salomon von Hauen, commissioned at Bergen, Norway, is the oldest known portrait depicting the traditional clothing of the Kalaallit people of Greenland. It depicts a group of four Kalaallit who were kidnapped by a Danish trade ship, each wearing traditional skin clothing. Numerous other paintings and engravings of Inuit and their clothing were created in Europe over the following centuries.
When modern techniques such as lithography and photography became available in the mid-19th century, it allowed for an even wider dissemination of images of Inuit clothing, especially in illustrated magazines. Around 1860, a series of Danish publications about Inuit culture and clothing from Greenland included lithographs created by Inuit artists. Both the Canadian Arctic Expedition (1913–1916), and the Fifth Thule Expedition (1922–1924) brought cameras and photographers to the Arctic, recording numerous photographs of Inuit and their clothing. These groups did their best to integrate with the Inuit in a respectful way, but not every photographer of that time had a similar attitude. Many photographs of Inuit from the early 20th century do not identify their subjects by name, and many Inuit in those photographs appear visibly uncomfortable having their photograph taken.
Academic writing and studies
One of the oldest major works describing Inuit clothing in detail is the 1741 book ("The Old Greenland's New Perlustration or Natural History") by Danish missionary Hans Egede. The book contained detailed drawings and descriptions of women's clothing from observations made during his fifteen years living in Greenland. Starting in the 18th century, the diaries and other writings of Arctic explorers and traders, and to a lesser extent, academics, provided further detail about daily Inuit clothing. As contact between outsiders and Inuit increased, so did the level of detail in their writing. The clothing of the Caribou Inuit and Copper Inuit during this time is particularly well-documented in such writing.