Generally defined as collections or repositories of records preserved for their historical value, archives have assumed new meanings and purposes for the contemporary fashion industry, especially in the last few years with relatively young designers being appointed as Creative Directors of historical fashion houses.
One of the recurrent questions in features and interviews about Raf Simons appointed at Dior, Alexander Wang at Balenciaga, Marco Zanini at Schiaparelli and, more recently, Nicolas Ghesquière at Louis Vuitton, is indeed to which extent they are/will be using the archives of the specific house they work for and how they will be renewing and reinventing traditions. Yet, if you really want to know what an archive is and where do fashion and history meet, you have to turn to a museum.
In the December/January issue of Ural-based magazine WTF (What's The Fashion?), a publication for design, architecture and fashion fans, I ask Oriole Cullen, Fashion Curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and Dilys Blum, Senior Curator of Costume and Textiles at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, what it means to work, curate and preserve a fashion and textile archive.
The feature also includes some notes on the Schiaparelli archive at the Philadelphia Museum. In 1969 the Italian-born and Paris-based designer who revolutionised the world of fashion in the '30s by collaborating with the Surrealist artists donated indeed several of her garments to the Musée de la Mode in Paris, the V&A in London and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The pieces that were donated to Philadelphia resonated with art and with their modern art collections, in particular with the works of Duchamp and Man Ray.
Schiap fans will hopefully enjoy the feature, while readers who may not know much about archives may discover something new and exciting. I'm embedding at the end of this post a preview of the magazine to give you an idea of the contents and lookout:
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