Charles Le Maire (1897-1985) began his costume design career in vaudeville shows of the 1920s. He later served as executive designer at Twentieth Century-Fox. In the 1950s, Le Maire formed his own business from private commissions and film work, earning thirteen Oscar nominations and three Oscars for Best Costume Design. The collection contains seventeen Le Maire sketches, including work for the Earl Carroll Vanities (1924-1930).

Donald Brooks (1928-2005) was a prominent American fashion designer who, in addition to creating ready-to-wear collections and custom apparel, designed costumes for film, television, and theater. He taught at Parsons School of Design for approximately forty years. The collection includes photographs, publicity materials, and original fashion and costume design sketches.

French-born Joset Walker (1902-1999) graduated from the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School of Design) in 1928, and became a leading designer of ready-to-wear clothing for Saks Fifth Avenue's Theatrical Department. In 1932, Walker served briefly as head costume designer for RKO Pictures. After returning to New York and designing for manufacturer David M. Goodstein, Walker left to found Joset Walker Designs.

Often incorporating Mexican and Guatemalan textiles, colors and styles into her designs for the American market, Walker reached the pinnacle of her career in the 1940s and '50s as a designer of casual, feminine clothing for women. The Joset Walker collection includes pages from Walker's scrapbooks, largely comprised of clippings of advertisements for her designs, but also including publicity, photographs of department store window displays, and ephemera documenting Walker's career.

Mildred Orrick (1906-1994) graduated from the New York School of Fine and Applied Art (later, Parsons School for Design) in 1928 and went on to a career as a fashion and costume designer and illustrator, and designed part of the Futurama exhibition at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Orrick was a visiting critic at Parsons from 1947 to 1962. The collection consists of Orrick's fashion and theater costume sketches, 1920s-1950s.

Robert Mackintosh (1925-1998) was a costume and fashion designer whose design career spanned forty years and twenty Broadway productions. He made his Broadway debut designing costumes for the 1952 musical Wish You Were Here. In the 1960s, Mackintosh branched out into womenswear design with Musette, a juniors label, which was sold at Bergdorf Goodman and Saks Fifth Avenue. He went on to design various other womens and menswear lines in the 1970s.

The bulk of the collection consists of costume sketches, technical sheets, and swatches from theatrical productions, including The Last Minstrel Show, and Mame. Also included are clippings, fashion publicity, and promotional photographs, as well as approximately 150 women's fashion sketches, and nine menswear sketches.