An/ Archive: Polimoda’s ‘ Anti- museum of Fashion’
The research hub will be presented during Pitti Uomo 105, through an event that will have the body as the main topic.
MILAN — Fashion is a forward-looking business. As such, the latest project from Florence-based leading fashion school Polimoda has nothing nostalgic about it. The school is opening the doors to An/ Archive, its new research hub, hosting a dedicated exhibition called “An/Archive Event One” bowing Tuesday in tandem with Pitti Uomo.
Last March, the school completed the acquisition of more than 75,437 square feet inside Florence's Manifattura Tabacchi, a former factory it already partially owned and used to house campuses, to create a new physical and digital research center open to the city and aimed at fueling fashion studies.
Talking to WWD, Polimoda director Massimiliano Giornetti, a former Salvatore Ferragamo creative director, detailed the school's vision and ambition for the new space and what it means for the fashion community.
He characterized it as the “antimuseum of fashion.”
“An/Archive is a concept opposite to the idea of archives. It's not just about safeguarding and preserving [fashion], but in fact it's a living, digital and real space whose primary purpose is the study of fashion. A space that is not closed, not aimed at preserving, not monothematic and not chronologically organized,” he said about the project.
Designed to welcome researchers, curators, archivists, students, designers and companies interested in studying fashion, the space will be divided into three areas, two physical and one digital.
The attic, spread across east and west wings, houses adjoining rooms dedicated to the fashion archives, consulting spaces and an exhibition area, featuring storage, displays for fabrics, garments and accessories, a photo studio. The exhibition room is to welcome temporary installations and is equipped with reclining panels, LED screens and stands, flexible and easily adaptable to different showcases and settings.
The building's second floor is entirely dedicated to the library, which the school bills as one of the largest fashion libraries in Europe, filled with an international collection of more than 25,000 tomes and more than 600 magazines.
A digital component is also part of the An/Archive project, through a dedicated online platform designed to provide remote access to both the archive and the library.
“This An/Archive project aims to become a space in which a ‘friend of
fashion' can approach the subject by touching, studying the items, turning them, opening them, examining their textiles, both in an IRL and digital way, in antithesis with the concept of museums, where items are often kept inside display cases, as an obstacle between the viewer and the object itself,” Giornetti explained. “An/Archive is precisely the antithesis to this, the ability to study, see, touch and explore what the idea of a fashion item is.”
Marking the space's opening, “An/ Archive Event One,” running through Jan. 21 is a multidisciplinary exhibition aimed at analyzing the relationship between fashion and the human body.
“What I have found extremely inspiring as a creative director in these last years has been precisely the evolution and perception of the body itself and how we went to look beyond what the body is. We approached very strongly the concept of oversize, genderless and diversity,” Giornetti explained. “The body remains the primary element around which to build the three-dimensionality of fashion.”
The exhibition features a display of A.N.G.E.L.O Vintage Archive's collection of vintage clothing. The centerpiece of this first showcase, it provides a captivating exploration of how the fashion-body relationships has evolved over time, from the chastising corsets to modern days' shapeless garments.
The showcase is flanked by spotlights on artists Sissel Tolaas and Minna Palmqvist, among others. The former has been exploring the notion of smell and how body odor is a unique aspect of personal identity not to be misinterpreted for the fragrance one wears. Swedish artist Palmqvist, meanwhile, has reinterpreted mannequins, seen as the primary stereotype of fashion, by deforming and deconstructing it to anthropomorphic, almost primordial dummies.
“Event One becomes a narrative around the theme of the body told by different people and artists. We move on from sight, the exploration of smell and the concept of touch, having a global vision of what the body is,” Giornetti said.
Rounding off the activities around the opening, writer Eugene Rabkin will host a talk on the evolution of the concept of the body within men's fashion highlighting the no-gender transformation and search for gender fluidity.
Giornetti said the An/Archive space plans to host seasonal new displays to bow in tandem with Pitti Uomo to fuel together with the fair meaningful conversations on fashion's trajectory.