Creating a Fashion Textile Archive

Textile/Fashion Archives between preservation and enhancement

Teacher:

Francina Chiara
Textile Historian

Based on museum and business experiences, this course explains the difficulties and methods of maintaining and improving a textile/fashion archive.Topics related to archival objects, inventory and cataloging, descriptive and promotional images, subject lists, and vocabularies will be discussed. Subjects such as routine maintenance, extraordinary interventions, and archive enhancement methods will also be explored.

Organizing and Managing a Corporate Archive in the Fashion Industry

Teacher:

Giorgetta Bonfiglio Dosio
Full Professor of Archival Science at the University of Padua and National Councilor for ANAI

The class will cover the following topics:

•  What is a Corporate Archive?
• What documents are contained in a Fashion Archive?
• What is the purpose and services of an Archive?
• How to organize a Corporate Archive?
• The archive as a tool for protecting the company and the brand.
• Enhancement and use of the Archive

Visit to the F.FRI Archive

Teacher:

Erika Zini
F.FRI Archive Office

Since 2015, Fashion Research Italy has been investing in fashion heritage, acquiring the Silkin Archive with approximately 30,000 textile designs. Fully digitized and cataloged, the Archive is accessible to companies, professionals, and scholars to enhance its cultural and creative heritage. During the visit, students will analyze the volumes in the Renzo Brandone Archive Library, which inspired Silkin’s graphic designers.

Visit to the Gucci Archive and Museum

Via delle Caldaie, 7 – 50125 Firenze

Housed in a 16th-century building (Palazzo Settimanni) on Via delle Caldaie in Florence, Gucci Garden unfolds over five floors, 2,800 square meters, encompassing 100 years of history. Conceived by Creative Director Alessandro Michele and designed with Valerie Steele, curator and director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, the Archive encompasses Gucci’s entire history from the 1920s to the last collection of Alessandro Michele, who also designed this monumental archive. Palazzo Settimanni has been owned by Gucci since 1953, when it was renovated to serve as its first Florentine factory.

Logistics at the student’s expense.