Visiting the International Library of Fashion Research
National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway
Vinyl wall text, International Library of Fashion Research. Photo by Xingyun Shen.
In March, I visited the International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR), an archival fashion library housed in the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway. The purpose of my trip was to write a commissioned piece for Vivo Journal on care practices in the archives, but it birthed more thoughts and reflections which I now detail.
Like a public library, the ILFR is an open-access place of research where visitors are free to enter without a prior appointment. Unlike a public library, a fashion library sparks tingling research curiosities for anyone interested in fashion idiosyncrasies. Upon entering the space, I noticed shelves filled with old volumes of fashion magazines, exhibition catalogues, and ephemera objects stored in stacks of grey acid-free boxes that visitors can consult.
Acid-free boxes containing various ephemera. Coincidentally, the library was due for a window cleaning that day, and shelves were covered with clear plastic foil to protect objects on display. Photo by Xingyun Shen.
I was especially excited about the visit because it was not the “usual” archive of garments but one of printed matter and peculiar¹ fashion ephemera². Through kindred donations, the atypical repository chronicles what one might typically keep in their memorabilia box. Think backstage lanyard passes, handwritten letters, and fashion show invitations that bring you right back to a particular moment in fashion. Here, the library makes public what would otherwise remain in document centres of museums or brand archives. Students, researchers, and industry professionals are invited to peruse these archival materials to understand fashion’s positioning via the industry of print and communication tools.
A box of Dries Van Noten ephemera. Photo by Xingyun Shen.
A box containing various backstage passes and lanyards. Photo by Xingyun Shen.
In my conversation with Ilaria Trame, the head librarian of ILFR, I learned that the library’s archival incorporation of ephemera means an old fashion show invitation is recognised as equally important in research value as, say, an old issue of Vogue. According to Marco Pecorari, fashion researcher and author of Fashion Remains: Rethinking Ephemera in the Archive (2021), ephemera's textual, visual, and material textures are fertile ground for potential research manifestations. Ephemera has a communicational function that reveals the discourses they promulgate about fashion when used and thereafter.
Collecting fashion ephemera legitimises these functional ornaments (see Dries Van Noten New Year 2009 chocolate bar) into archeological artefacts, as a nod to the collectability and importance of archiving the history of fashion. Receiving donations, archiving, and caring for these flimsy objects sees fashion for its material and value production through time. One might see this conservation effort as the ultimate form of preserving the material poetics of ephemera, where sensorial memories can be triggered way after a fashion event.
Besides official branded material like greeting cards and show invitations, the library also accounts for more personal objects, like handwritten cards and letters. One such example, a particular letter to Martin Margiela in 2006, stands out. In my conversation with Ilaria, I learned about a letter from Guy, who walked past Martin Margiela’s shop on 13 Rue de Grenelle in Paris and felt compelled by the shop’s window display to write a letter to the designer. Unfortunately, it did not reach the designer, and the letter remained in the house’s communications archive. It was later donated to ILFR by then-communications director Patrick Scallon, along with other objects.
Envelope and a handwritten letter addressed to Martin Margiela kept in a clear plastic sleeve. See the digital scan here. Photo by Xingyun Shen.
“Ephemera may also be related to flimsy materials connected to the private sphere, like diaries belonging to practitioners working in the fashion industry, such as fashion designers, journalists, and photographers. They could also be from clients of well-known fashion brands who have retained not only garments but also receipts or personal correspondences with the brands,” Pecorari writes in his book. The aspect of the personal expands the definition of fashion ephemera as branded materials. Personal exchanges allow for fashion to be pluralistic and connected to lived experiences. In this case, they document how we walk, where we go, what we write with, and how fashion spaces make us feel.
Fashion magazines from the 80s to now, organised by titles. Photo courtesy of Xingyun Shen.
That being said, given its geographical location, the ILFR remains relatively Western-centric in its collection. Most artefacts come from donors based in the West, namely New York, London, Paris, and Antwerp. Walking out of the library into Oslo's cold, blue hour, I wonder about constructing such a library based in Singapore or Southeast Asia. How would ephemera be perceived in our context? As much as show invitations are novel to look at in an archive, the sensorial memories they trigger are not ones to which I could personally relate. Looking through my multiple digital photo albums on sartorial amusements, I wonder if our ephemera looks like old clothing tags from now-defunct streetwear brands like local streetwear label Mash Up or paper bags from the first Comme des Garcon guerilla pop-up in Haji Lane in 2004.
I quickly realised that a collection like this already exists, whether or not it was intended for official archiving or personal keepsake (likely the latter, which is why memorabilia boxes exist). Hence, I ask: What is the line that differentiates an institutional archive from a personal collection? And is it necessary to source and gather these fragmented collections into an institutional one? In the age of TikTok-as-dictionary (not a bad thing) and critical research gate-kept by paywalls, I would like to conclude with the hope that the objects telling histories of fashion in Singapore might already be sitting in someone’s bedroom. I look forward to more encounters with researching ephemera, and searching for it in my day-to-day life.
Notes
Quoted from Ilaria’s interview.
Ephemera is “[a] category of flimsy, printed artefacts produced but not intended to survive beyond their initial purpose,” as defined by fashion researcher Marco Pecorari, in his book Fashion Remains: Rethinking Ephemera in the Archive (2021).
About the Writer
Xingyun Shen is a writer and researcher based in the Netherlands. She is interested in bringing out the intimate nature of fashion through text as material. She was the country coordinator of Fashion Revolution Singapore and the editor of MANIFESTO. Find her previous work here.