The Fashion Issue
Abstract
Here begins the third cycle of ARCHIVIO: four thematic issues, each edited by a Guest Editor specialized in the field in order to have an expert eye to open the doors of the archives and show you where to look in these vast worlds.
The first, ARCHIVIO N°9, is dedicated to Fashion, with Stefano Tonchi—curator and journalist in the field of fashion—as Guest Editor-in-Chief, joined by Marco Pecorari—Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Program Director of the MA in Fashion Studies at Parsons Paris. Editorial direction is by Daniela Hamaui, while the art direction is by Alessandro Gori. For our cover, we asked artist Francesco Vezzoli to create a portfolio that would put fashion archives in conversation with Pop Culture.
ARCHIVIO N°9, offers a mapping of the fashion archives international landscape at this moment in time and an overview of the many typologies and studies happening in the world we live in, divided in three sections: ‘Public & Institutional’, ‘Brands & Strategies’, ‘Private & Personal’. It also includes a special poster: an (in)complete mapping of the countless fashion archives in Italy. A research by Promemoria, ARCHIVIO’s publisher, visually processed by Accurat. The result is a map that is also a small work of art.
Stefano Tonchi,“Fashion archives are always changing, creating new narratives and relationships, always moving. They are living archives.”
Guest Editor-in-Chief
Glimpse of the Month
By Amy de la Haye and Oriole Cullen
The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) was established in 1852 and was founded to collect and display objects of art and manufacture in order to educate and inform the taste of manufacturers and the buying public. Whilst fashion fulfilled this remit, it was excluded because of its ephemerality. This vision was rooted in various prejudices and institutional dynamics. Style and cut were viewed as constantly changing values and were often dismissed by senior male staff who identified fashion as lacking in lasting value. However, the fashion textiles and trimmings, used to make the fashionable dress, were collected and interpreted as examples of industrial and craft production, creating an involuntary assemblage for the collection and archivization of fashion.
