Polimoda announces the creation of a new concept fashion archive, a dynamic research center open to the city and geared to incentivising the development of Fashion Studies.
Polimoda presents the AN/ARCHIVE project, a new physical and digital environment dedicated to development and research in the area of Fashion Studies and a dynamic platform for all innovators in the fashion sector.
A space open to the city, designed to welcome researchers, curators, archivists, students, designers and businesses interested in studying fashion. Not a museum but a new concept fashion archive: a vibrant, dynamic and accessible place for research, but also a venue for encounters and events. A workshop in constant evolution based on the curatorship of iconic garments by great designers, encouraging contact between the various creative players in the fashion system using a universal idiom and an analytical approach to fashion.
AN/ARCHIVE will be created in Florence in the Manifattura Tabacchi complex – already home to Polimoda’s school – which embodies one of the project’s main characteristics: the need to use spaces in a contemporary, accessible way, with the aim of supporting a new generation of creatives and of fostering innovation in fashion
Indeed, AN/ARCHIVE is designed as an innovative space that will host exhibitions, workshops, conferences and debates on some of the most relevant issues for today’s fashion industry, so stimulating reflection on the future of the sector and helping a new generation of researchers to emerge.
AN/ARCHIVE will be a collective platform for dialogue and curatorship, accommodating a range of activities. For example, the development of a digital fashion archive, research into new fabrics and technologies, artistic curatorship of garments, collections or archive material, fashion writing and criticism, and the study of fashion history, with a sharp eye on the future of creativity, current trends and anthropological research.
AN/ARCHIVE will also house one of the largest fashion libraries in Europe, with an international collection of over 25,000 volumes, in addition to rare, antique and precious materials, a periodicals library with over 600 titles (from the 19th century to the present), lookbooks, commercial catalogues and multimedia content. Lastly, its digital library will offer access to electronic resources dedicated to the fashion and business sectors.
The project will be curated by Polimoda and supported by the school’s resources, European funding, grants, sponsors, and public and private partnerships interested in training and research.