Archivists, And The Archives They Maintain, Are The Heartbeat Of Fashion Houses

In fashion, as in anything else, everything old is new again. This is especially true right now, as the planet’s most-followed individuals revert back to such once-eschewed, decades-old staples as tracksuits and inflated shoulders. The industry has been riding a nostalgia wave for several years, with no indication that the swell might subside anytime soon. And for many brands of price-points high and low, luxury and mass-market, this poses an interesting challenge: to create newness while reissuing pieces it designed 10, or 50, or more years ago. How do fashion houses package their past while also contemporizing it, looking to the future? Archivists play a very large role in that, but they also work fluently with their brands’ respective creative teams to inform on everything from house codes to pattern-making. Many, if not all, large houses have them, and quite a few smaller brands do, too. It’s a full-time, hands-on role, either dedicated to one label in particular or spread out across a number of sister brands within a company. For a professional archivist, no one day is the same. Read more at Fashionista.