

“When a brand becomes global and a designer is managing a huge team, are needed for referencing. “It’s difficult, but ultimately it’s extremely important,” added Bowles. “In essence, it can be tapped for any number of projects that bring awareness to the brand.
Archive fashion archive#
“Properly maintaining an archive ensures that have their body of work on hand and in good condition should they wish to use it for exhibitions, books, reference, advertising, celebrity dressing,” Orsini said. But for brands, both established and emerging, it’s increasingly seen to be an important investment, because building an archive can have real strategic value. “Maintaining an archive can cost as little as $10,000 a year and can go into the six or seven figures,” Orsini said. And indeed, for a major brand like Dior, archiving can be as extensive - and costly - as running a museum. According to Soizic Pfaf, who manages the brand’s archives, Dior’s storage rooms follow the International Council of Museum’s strict guidelines on preservation: no daylight, humidity kept between 45 and 50 percent, temperature kept between 18 and 20 degrees Celsius.

Today, maintaining the Dior archives - which contains approximately 4,000 garments, thousands of accessories, original sketches, and press releases dating back to the first collection - is a major operation. Thank god he did that," continued Bowles, who also maintains his own personal archive of about 3,500 pieces, including early works by John Galliano and pieces by Dior, Balenciaga, Chanel, Schiaparelli - even Charles Frederick Worth. "He would fight with the clients who wanted the pieces. Yves Saint Laurent was the first designer to realise the value of maintaining an archive and he kept his couture pieces from the very beginning. The couture houses would hold sales for their favourite clients. "Everything you produced for the runway you wanted to sell. "The whole notion of collecting your archive is a fairly new one," said Hamish Bowles, international editor-at-large for American Vogue. Dior’s archive, for instance, was first created when the brand began preparing for its 40th anniversary exhibition, which took place at the Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris in 1987. It wasn’t until the 1980s that fashion brands started to take the idea of archiving their collections seriously.
Archive fashion mod#
Orsini has also worked with Jason Wu, Proenza Schouler and Ralph Rucci, as well as Lisa Perry, who keeps her valuable 1960s vintage collection alongside an archive of her own line of mod shift dresses in a climate-controlled room in the Manhattan penthouse she shares with her husband, Richard C Perry.įifteen years ago, Orsini’s job didn’t really exist. Her first major client was Tom Ford, where she worked in-house for three years before launching her own consulting firm specialising in fashion archiving.įord is a client and she still spends a good deal of her time maintaining and adding to his archive. This important resource expands the accessibility of artifacts both intellectually and geographically.ĭigitization efforts have been generously supported by Gloria and Bruzzy Westheimer, as well as the UNT Diamond Eagles Society, a group whose gifts are pooled together to fund an annual high-impact campus project. The TFC was chosen as the recipient of Diamond Eagles project funding in 2020.īrowse the Texas Fashion Collection's Digital Collection.NEW YORK, United States - Julie Ann Orsini was a fashion history graduate student at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York when she "fell into" the world of fashion archiving. Through a partnership with the UNT Libraries, a portion of the TFC's physical holdings has been photographed, described, and made available online through the Libraries' portal. Today, the collection includes nearly 20,000 garments and accessories spanning 250 years and including examples from five continents.Īt this time, the Texas Fashion Collection is undergoing extensive inventory and documentation in preparation for providing online access to all objects that have been photographed. The Dallas Fashion Group saw that it came to UNT in 1972 to support a growing fashion design program. The collection of top designers' works began in 1938 through the efforts of Stanley and Edward Marcus. This vital resource is part of the UNT College of Visual Arts and Design.

The UNT Texas Fashion Collection is dedicated to the preservation and documentation of historically significant fashion and serves as an educational and inspirational resource for students, researchers, and the general public. Victor Costa wedding dress of pink net and embroidery (1992),
