A Visit to the PVH Corporate Archive

On a high floor in PVH’s Madison Avenue headquarters, past a hallway lined with vintage Van Heusen ads and a giant collage of old fabric labels, is the corporate archive. It’s a repository for everything from old detachable collars and company ledgers to department store display signs and packaging.

The archive, which is overseen by PVH licensing and marketing president Ken Wyse, is just three years old. I had the pleasure of wandering through it last week after seeing the new collections. My guide was archive coordinator Vanessa Gardynski, one of four employees under archive manager Samantha Dinmore.

Dinmore told me a little more about the archive via email later: “PVH saw the potential of our heritage assets and wanted to develop a way for associates and licensees to access items. Fast-forward three years, and the Corporate Archive has grown into a creative role in the organization. It is a place where designers, graphic artists, and licensees come to get inspired.”

Most recently, she adds, “the Archive worked with Warner Brothers on the placement of an Arrow advertisement in The Great Gatsby film. The corporate archive houses advertisements, merchandising materials, apparel, and company culture, to name a few, dated back to the early 1800’s. We use these assets in the reproduction of garments and fabrics, social media, campaigns, etc.”