Living Cultural Heritage: Exploring Fashion Heritage within Corporate Archives

Abstract

This article was conducted to explore the concept of the corporate archive in the fashion industry as a Living Cultural Heritage and to investigate the different approaches that are emerging within companies in the industry to take advantage of the potential that their archives offer. Indeed, while archives in fashion are used habitually for marketing purposes to reinforce a brand’s identity and authenticate its collection, they can provide a significant competitive advantage if integrated into the design and production processes as a generator of expertise and knowledge. Through the analysis of relevant case studies, the article presents and discusses a theoretical framework that examines current strategies related to cultural heritage within corporate archives. Through the definition of four scenarios, the archive’s specific value as a generative/transformative tool will emerge that is able to inform a company’s material and productive culture and will have a profound influence on the way that actions and interactions between artifacts, stimuli, and inspirations are conceived, designed, and planned in contemporary contexts while rooted in the brand’s legacy.

Keywords

• living cultural heritage
• corporate archives
• disruptive heritage model
• fashion digital technologies
• fashion design