Fashion captures the historical moment, giving it shape and fixing it in fabric. We often turn to fashion as a record and reflection of its time. Yet how is fashion itself recorded? What tools do we have to document the design, production, and use of fashion? What constitutes a fashion object? When writing the history of fashion, what is worthy of the archive, and what is cast aside? When considering the legacy of the most famous luxury brands, what is included in the narrative, and what is deliberately left out? At the heart of this question is the idea of ephemera: from invitations, to press releases, to catalogs, minor and often forgotten documents provide an alternative means of envisioning the development of modern fashion within the contemporary marketplace. Experts in fashion history, practices of collection, and archival sciences discuss.
About the speakers:
Antoine Bucher graduated from the University of Lille and from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris. He is the co-founder of Diktats, a bookstore specialized in rare books and documents related to fashion from the 16th century to the 20th century. As the manager of Diktats, Antoine Bucher has been working with international museums and libraries, private collectors and heritage departments of luxury brands for more than a decade.
Dr. Marco Pecorari is Assistant Professor and Program Director of the MA in Fashion Studies at Parsons Paris. He is co-editor of the volume Fashion, Performance and Performativity: The Complex Spaces of Fashion (2021) and author of Fashion Remains: Rethinking Fashion Ephemera in the Archive (2021). He is the co-founder of the festival and publication Printing Fashion and sits on the editorial boards of Fashion Theory, ZoneModa Journal, and Bloomsbury Fashion Central.
Important information: The discussion will be available both online and in person. While the conversation will happen in person (Bucher and Pecorari will appear in the Reading Room), the Library will stream the conversation on Zoom for a live viewing experience. Both in-person and online attendees will be able to pose questions.
Please note the Daylight Savings gap between the US and France. This event will take place at 19h30 CET / 14h30 EDT
This event requires advance registration.
Attendance at this event constitutes permission for your photograph or video to be taken at the event and used by the American Library in Paris for marketing, promotional, pedagogical, or other purposes.
This talk is supported by the Florence Gould Foundation and the American Center for Arts and Culture.
