Welcome to the Fashion Research Symposium 2022 at the National Museum in Oslo! The symposium is a collaboration between the National Museum and International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR), and is a two-day event for fashion research, knowledge-sharing and critical discourse. The symposium’s theme is “Decentralizing Fashion”.

We may know much about fashion in Paris or Milan, but what is going on in Helsinki? How can fashion flourish in Oslo and Kåfjord?

Fashion is a global industry, and its supply chains are made up of complex networks of people who carry out their specialized labor in scattered corners of the globe. Its financial power, however, is centralized; major fashion cities dominate the industry, often at the expense of those directly involved in the processes of production.

This year’s symposium gathers leading researchers and practitioners to consider fashion practices in smaller creative ecosystems around the world. Including Kaat Debo (Director of MoMu, Antwerp), Ida Falck Øien (Associate Professor, Oslo Academy of the Arts), Véronique Pouillard (Professor in Modern International History, University of Oslo), Jeppe Ugelvig (curator, critic and theorist, Editor-in-Chief of Viscose Journal), and many more.

The 2022 Fashion Research Symposium builds on the research project “Norwegian Fashion: Cultural Production and Aesthetic Mediational Practices” by Synne Skjulstad, associate professor at Høyskolen Kristiania.

Fashion Research Symposium 2022 'Decentralizing Fashion'

‘For Immediate Release: The Art of the Press Release’ showcases a selection of press releases and promo-texts from fourteen iconic fashion practitioners over time. Focusing on seminal collaborations between brands and writers in the elusive field of copy-writing, this exhibition tracks the shifting nature of fashion promotion in relation to its mediators at large. From performative and conceptual show notes to dictionary-type lexicons, the exhibition presents the press release as the primary form of fashion communication and promotion, an engine of persuasion, hype, and brand loyalty, that has evolved as vividly as fashion itself.

With materials from Alessandro Michele, Angelo Figus, Comme des Garçons, Dries Van Noten, Keupr van/Bentm, Maison Martin Margiela, Mowalola, Prada, Shelley Fox, Sunnei, Virgil Abloh, Vivienne Westwood, Walter Van Beirendonck and WilliWear.

Curated by Elise By Olsen & Jeppe Ugelvig. With support from MoMu Antwerp & Nordisk Kulturfond

For Immediate Release: The Art of the Press Release

On the occasion of the inaugural exhibition for the International Library of Fashion Research in collaboration with the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design (in Oslo, Norway), Printed Matter’s Chelsea location is hosting an in-store film screening featuring the work of Lengua. The artist, whose work parallels fashion and art and deconstructs perspectives of gender via fashion, was commissioned to create an interactive fashion film that genuinely involves and reflects the international underground queer scene.

Through the lense of a flickering sun, the short film titled «Bliss, Abyss» narrates three characters on an apocalyptic or disastrous quest towards another world; bodies (with grotesque costumes and sun-burnt skin) in relationship with other bodies. An extension of Lengua’s personal work within fashion and photography, this film is a highly candid, poetic and visually compelling artistic interpretation of the project’s themes-at-large; such as queer identities, alternative gender expression and Queer Futurism.

At Printed Matter (the first satellite exhibition of the film); the display will also feature a series of books and reference materials further expanding on the themes of the project. Additionally an extended catalog will be published, giving context to the themes, the commission and the project, with contributors selected by the artist themselves in dialogue with the curators. The catalogue expands and explores themes behind the commission such as the antropocene, queer historiography, synergies between the respective local and international underground scenes and alternative gender expression.

Special thanks to The Norwegian Consulate General in New York for generously supporting this project.

Queering Fashion at Printed Matter

In occasion of Queer Culture Year 2022, a series of events marking that it’s 50 years since homosexuality was decriminalized in Norway, the new cultural institution International Library of Fashion Research is opening a temporary ‘Queering Room’ at Polestar Space in Oslo. ‘Queering Room’ offers an alternative take on themes such as fashion & queerness, queer identites and alternative gender expression. Through a selection of research material, including books, independent magazines and other printed ephemera integrating the Library’s permanent collection, ‘Queering Room’ becomes a welcoming potential source for queer conversation in fashion.

‘Queering Room’ extends on the Library’s inaugural exhibition project ‘Queering Fashion’ in collaboration with the National Museum, which will open later this summer, and travel to Printed Matter in New York. The exhibition’s central piece; a hybrid between a fashion and art film, created by key figures from the international underground queer scene, will be exclusively previewed at Polestar Space on June 17th, marking the opening of ‘Queering Room’.

Queering Room at Polestar Space Oslo

International Library of Fashion Research is officially opening, and we're celebrating with a two-day opening programme with talks and activities.

Official opening

For its new issue "The PROVENCE Proust Questionnaire" PROVENCE has teamed up with International Library of Fashion Research for a photographic report by Oslo-based photographer Einar Mølmann Fuglem, who staged the library’s collection of fashion ephemera.


To celebrate this collaboration and the Oslo-launch of the new issue, PROVENCE is donating a complete set of all issues realised since the magazine's creation in 2009 to the ILFR which will be on view at the launch. Founder of ILFR @elisebyolsen and PROVENCE editor and artist @samuelhaitz will be in conversation about the history and intentions of PROVENCE, the relationship between art and fashion and of course their collaboration on the current issue.

Originally conceived in 2009 as an artist's publication with eight issues corresponding to the eight letters of the word PROVENCE, today, PROVENCE is an agile construct, publishing a biannual magazine as well as curating exhibitions and events, and producing artist's editions. At the center of all these activities are questions of authorship, modes and conditions of production, as well as the roles taken by both the collective and the individuals involved. Formats—such as those of a commercial high fashion or art magazine—are taken and adapted. Recurrent themes are, besides reflections on artistic practice itself, feminism, consumer culture, class, culture, hierarchy, subversion, commercialization, and self-optimization.

Oslo Launch "The Provence Proust Questionnaire"

Founded in 2020, Library will become the world’s most comprehensive repository of specialized fashion research and contemporary fashion publications. We will fill a much-needed gap in the preservation of and critical engagement with fashion’s printed culture at an institutional level, and build a free, globally accessible resource for fashion researchers, industry professionals, and amateur enthusiasts.

Program

The collection is animated by various educational, editorial or curatorial activities which essentially makes the Library come to life.

2023

2022