Why is everything called “archival” all of a sudden?
By JACOB GALLAGHER
It’s the word that ate the fashion industry: archive.
Banana Republic has an “archive” collection, where it sells its Reagan-era T-shirts and pants. Sydney Sweeney hasn’t merely worn a Versace dress, she has worn an archival Versace dress. In Paris, you can buy 30-year-old Comme des Garçons jackets and Margiela sweaters from the Archivist Store. That’s not to be confused with other resellers like Archive Reloaded, Archive Threads or Archive Vintage. And new labels like Post Archive Faction and B1archive trade on the hazy authority of labeling something archival to sell their ideas.
“It’s a peculiar use of that term,” said Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Dr. Steele has a lot of familiarity with fashion archives in the traditional sense — mammoth, often climate-controlled storerooms of antique garments managed by fashion houses in various states of anal-retentive organization.
To her, “archive” is suffering the same fate as the word curation. If it once added a glaze of authority to an item, it has now been overused to the point of obsolescence. the fashion industry: archive.
Banana Republic has an “archive” collection, where it sells its Reagan-era T-shirts and pants. Sydney Sweeney hasn’t merely worn a Versace dress, she has worn an archival Versace dress. In Paris, you can buy 30-year-old Comme des Garçons jackets and Margiela sweaters from the Archivist Store. That’s not to be confused with other resellers like Archive Reloaded, Archive Threads or Archive Vintage. And new labels like Post Archive Faction and B1archive trade on the hazy authority of labeling something archival to sell their ideas.
“It’s a peculiar use of that term,” said Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Dr. Steele has a lot of familiarity with fashion archives in the traditional sense — mammoth, often climate-controlled storerooms of antique garments managed by fashion houses in various states of anal-retentive organization.
To her, “archive” is suffering the same fate as the word curation. If it once added a glaze of authority to an item, it has now been overused to the point of obsolescence.
“The implication is that you too could have an archive of iconic fashion, you know, historically and artistically significant fashion,” Dr. Steele said. In reality, as she said, “it can be a little bit confusing.”.