Vintage fashion data


Vintage Fashion Data

http://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/town-travel-ware/

 

While the importance of preserving valuable artifacts and data may seem like common sense, Noriega emphasizes and explains in detail all the reasons as to why it is so critical to maintain catalogues and records of what has come before us. One thing that I love is vintage clothing.  If it were not for people taking the time to document the clothing tags, and photographing different brands and their styles, over time, it would become very difficult to know what garment of clothing came from what decade. I feel like knowing minor details like that makes clothing feel particularly unique. I have a swim suit form the mid seventies and it was thanks to the website listed below which has a huge “Label Resource” page where you can see how the logos of different companies have changed over the years. I feel like knowing a bit of history gives it better context in the world at large and that allows us to tell better stories about those objects.

The cool thing about vintage clothing is that it never really goes out of style and that designers are always looking back to it for inspiration, as art collector Armando Durón stated, “no one can tell what the ‘historical cut’ will be 100 years from now—that is, what or who will be seen as important or forgotten” (Noriega, 10).  Thus it is important to try and catalogue everything so that nothing is missed or overlooked in the future.  You never know what will be trendy in the next few decades, so you might as well have access to as much of the past as you can.

 

Another important thing to keep in mind about preservation is that natural disaster can destroy material things and if things are digitized, they can be saved forever.  Sadly, “during the summer of 2001, a short circuit in the air conditioning system caused a fire on the roof that might have destroyed the building… But the event provided a harsh reminder about the fragility of the historical building and its contents” (Noriega, 12). It would be really tragic if a beautiful collection of vintage clothes were to be flooded or something, but if there were at least photo documentation, new designers could try and replicate old patters, especially if the patterns were saved as well.

 

And finally, after reading Classification and it’s structures, I learned it is important not to cross classify because things can easily get lost and confused and so for the vintage clothing website they have a few broad categories such as furs, fabrics, and labels which all have their own sub categories that are easy to distinguish.