The Special Collection contains a number of rare, unusual or specialist items, including some materials that can be used for primary source study, including:
- Fashion forecasting materials, such as the current issues of Peclers, Texitura, Textile View, View 2, as well as an archive of previous Fashion forecasting resources, such as older Peclers and Promostyls
- The Fashion Journals Archive - An archive of fashion journals dating from c. 1900 including Vogue (US and British), Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, Nova and Queen
- The Artist's Books Collection - a collection of artist's books selected by the University's Graphics and Illustration staff
- The Leather Collection.
