ARCHIVE NERDS: Secondhand and vintage sales, fashion auctions and an overall interest in archival garments and accessories have spiked in recent years, drawing an exponentially increasing crowd of fashion aficionados, ranging from customers and collectors of different generations to stylists and celebrities.
For those eager to take their fascination with fashion archives a step further and make a career out of it, a new training program is to launch at Milan’s Poli.Design, part of the city’s Politecnico university, in March.
Titled “Luxury Heritage Management: Branding & Archive,” the 120-hour executive course was conceived to meet demand and aimed at training future heritage managers and professionals skilled in understanding, interpreting, managing, enhancing and communicating the tangible and intangible heritage of luxury, fashion, jewelry and lifestyle brands.
Designed for graduates with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in humanities, arts, design, engineering, or management, the monthlong program includes both theoretical and practical activities, such as lectures, intensive workshops, visits at companies and seminars. Half the syllabus focuses on deep dives into branding, while the other centers on archive preservation, design, digitization and promotion.
To be sure, the training objectives encompass learning techniques for creating, preserving and enhancing archives; defining the curatorial storytelling of heritage through contemporary languages; learning software for designing a digital archive, as well as new technologies, digital archiving tools and 3D modeling, among others.
The program will be overseen by Alba Cappellieri, a well-known curator and head of jewelry and fashion accessories programs at the Politecnico di Milano, and the technical direction of Alessio de’Navasques, a critic, curator of fashion cultural projects and an international archives expert.
Contributions from guest archivists and curators will add to the program, along with case studies from archive companies such as Promemoria Group and d_Archive and leading luxury brands of the likes of Buccellati, Bulgari, Chanel, Fondazione Ferrè, Hermès, Emilio Pucci Heritage, Tiffany & Co., Van Cleef & Arpels and Venini.
The course is dedicated to those who want to pursue a career within brands, institutions, foundations and public or private organizations operating in the luxury and fashion sectors, targeting roles such as archivist, curator and brand content manager.
Applications for the 20 spots available for the first edition launching March 9 can be submitted until Feb. 6. The total fee of the course is 4,148 euros per student.