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

Official opening

Guest Salons is an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research. Our third salon is hosted on the occasion of Designer’s Saturday on Friday 8th of September, from 13:00 to 14:00.


Renowned jewelry designer Sigurd Bronger is in conversation with creative director Morteza Vaseghi on occasion of their eponymous exhibition at Oslo’s International Library of Fashion Research. The conversation will be moderated by Elise By Olsen and will revolve around design practices at large.

Free coffee and notebooks!

Guest Salons #3: URO

The Nordic region abounds with exciting and prominent local designers, publishers, photographers, architects, critics, curators and cultural agitators, who operate within the field of fashion. The Nordic fashion system, similar to that of the worldwide, is in constant change, but stands alone in reacting to the steady decline of industry and local clothing and textile production by fostering alternative cultural infrastructures and creative ecosystems. This ever-changing landscape, supported by the integration of digital tools, constantly blurs the boundaries of Nordic fashion practice and stimulates a more decentralized and capillary presence beyond the Nordic metropoles, whilst having an international audience, ambition and appeal.

This summer, International Library of Fashion Research institutes a pilot researcher-in-residence program, with an aim to expand the knowledge around contemporary Nordic fashion cultures. As a stimulating meeting point and resource for fashion research in the Nordics, the researcher-in-residence program will be an important initiative to collect, archive and preserve printed matter from this region, including (but not limited to) magazines, photo books, catalogs, illustrations and other physical ephemera and documents, based on a multitude of Nordic fashion practitioners, collectors and institutions, to ultimately integrate this material as a significant specialization of our permanent collection – and cherish it for the future.

Do you want to expand your research through your Nordic connection? 

Through a group of strategic partners and advisors the selected researcher-in-residence will systematically map out the history, representation and contemporary ramifications of Nordic fashion cultures through practical research and dialogues with practitioners. The collected material will then be registered and digitized as an open, free and dedicated part of ILFR’s digital and physical database, then displayed through specific curatorial, educational and mediational activities. The results aim to be published in a research anthology.

The researcher-in-residence pilot program will begin on August 1st 2024 and end on December 1st 2024. A stipend of 50,000 Norwegian kroner is allocated to the selected researcher. It’s fully possible to combine the program with other professional endeavors or studies. Occasional visits to International Library of Fashion Research’s collection and study space in Oslo will be arranged, and it’s not mandatory to be physically present in Oslo during the entire course of the program. “Nordic Fashion, Printed Culture and Heritage Making” is supported by the Nordic Culture Fund.

The advisory board consists of Ane Lynge-Jorlen (curator & director of ALPHA), Elin Kathrine Saunes (CEO of Norwegian Fashion Hub),  Elnaz Gargari (fashion designer), Hanne Eide (curator of contemporary fashion, National Museum of Norway), Ida Falck Øien (associate professor, KHiO & fashion designer), Louise Wallenberg (professor in fashion studies, Stockholm University), Maria Ben Saad (lecturer in fashion communication, Beckmans College), Namkyu Chun (University Lecturer in Design Communication, Aalto University), Ramona Salo (fashion designer), Sigurður Atli Sigurðsson (visual artist & organizer of Reykjavík Art Book Fair).


Please submit your application by filling out >

OPEN CALL: Nordic Fashion, Printed Culture and Heritage Making

The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design & International Library of Fashion Research invite you to an exclusive talk with the prominent Norwegian fashion designer Per Spook (b. 1939) about his time and practice in Paris. 

The National Museum (Auditorium), Brynjulf Bulls plass 3, Oslo 

The point of departure is Spook's new book 

). Hélène Martini was a Polish-French exotic dancer who became a profiled night club owner in Paris. Spook dressed her, and she became a muse of his works. 

Per Spook arrived from Norway to Paris in 1959 at the age of twenty. After doing his apprenticeship at the fashion houses Dior and Yves Saint Laurent, he became lead designer at Louis Féraud in 1962. In 1977 he established a fashion house under his own name. Up until 1994 he presented two haute couture collections a year, and for three of them he won French fashion's most prestigious award.


Introduction by Elise By Olsen (Founding Director, International Library of Fshion Research)


Conversation between Per Spook, Hanne Eide (Curator of Dress & Contemporary Fashion, the National Museum) and Else Skålvoll Thorenfeldt (Head of Communcations, International Library of Fashion Research) 


Book signing in the museum store and guided tour of International Library of Fashion Research

Book launch with Per Spook

International Library of Fashion Research

Calling all distributors, resellers, designers, publishers, magazines and independent practitioners for Fashion Printed Matter(s) – a fashion & art book fair taking place at International Library of Fashion Research in Oslo from 28th to 29th of September 2024. The fair’s mission is to create a network of fashion printed matter aficionados and to establish ever-growing conversations on the history, the state of the art and the future of fashion in print. Inspired both by the cultural quake ignited by international art book fairs and the subcultural resonance of underground gatherings related to independent printed culture, the fair will merge interdisciplinary publishing projects to amplify their voices and share their visions.

Publishers & practitioners working around and beyond fashion will have the opportunity to apply for a stand within the spaces of International Library of Fashion Research and offer their selections of books, magazines, zines, pamphlets, illustrations, posters – any kind of printed matter. ILFR will also actively participate in the fair by putting on sale duplicates from the collection acquired by previous donations. It is free of charge to both participate and visit the fair.

Fashion Printed Matter(s) is arranged in tandem with the exhibition “Ephemeral Matters” at the National Museum of Norway. The exhibition, curated by Marco Pecorari and Hanne Eide, is opening on 27th of September 2024. This year’s Fashion Research Symposium will be held on 27th of September 2024.

*Apply for your booth before 1st of May 2024. We will confirm your eventual participation by 1st of June 2024.

BOOK A BOOTH at Fashion Printed Matter(s)*

Guest Salons is an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research. Our inaugural salon ‘Putting the Whore Back in Hoarding' is hosted by curator and collector Geir Haraldseth on Tuesday 20th of June at 18.00-20.00.

Where does the line go between collecting, hoarding and archiving? Am I delusional for keeping press releases, check lists and knick-knacks? What to do we do with all the trash we collect?

Suggested reading 

https://www.artforum.com/print/202304/claire-bishop-on-the-superabundance-of-research-based-art-90274

Guest Salons #1: Putting the Whore Back in Hoarding

“The Italian Foot-In-Print. Traces of Italian Fashion Printed Matter” is both a new curatorial intervention by Guest Researcher Carolina Davalli and International Library of Fashion Research’s fourth exhibition project.

With its boot-like figure, Italy has left a major footprint on International Library of Fashion Research’s permanent collection. From Italian brands’ catalogs and magazines, to Italian practitioners which collaborated to national and international projects, passing through Italian fashion exhibition’s catalogs; the Library hosts a wide and heterogeneous archive of Italy’s fashion heritage. Italy’s influence in fashion printed culture found its way in an international collection based in Oslo, displaying the pervasiveness of Made in Italy within the fashion system as a whole.

The exhibition stems from Carolina Davalli’s PhD research which studies public access to fashion printed matter within the capillary yet under researched network of repositories and archives in the Italian landscape. It is almost paradoxical to think of flying to Oslo to gain access to Italian fashion printed matter, yet Italy-based fashion researchers struggle to gain access to certain communication materials in their home country. The materials showcased aim to trace an overarching, but non-exhaustive, history of contemporary Italian fashion printed culture production, and to insert Oslo in the map of relevant archives and libraries for Italian fashion research. The exhibition also hosts a reading room with a selection materials available for consultation.

We would like to thank the students of Kristiania University College, under the guidance of Professor Vésma K. McQuillan, and Holgers and Inguna Eleri from the design studio H2E, for participating in the initial brainstorming for the exhibition.

The Italian Foot-In-Print. Traces of Italian Fashion Printed Matter

As part of a collaboration between the Norwegian graphic design union Grafill and International Library of Fashion Research we are excited to welcome graphic designer Ben Ganz, for a Guest Salon on Tuesday 12th of March, from 18:00 to 20:00.


Through Office Ben Ganz, based in New York City with a satellite team in Paris, Ben has led projects within creative direction, branding and object design. At his Guest Salon “Banal Objects” he will talk about typography, image-making and objects, and his work with fashion- and design clients such as Schiaparelli, Frank Ocean’s accessories brand Homer, Nike, USM, Prada, and Shayne Oliver. Since 2020, Ganz has led the creative directon for the architecture and design magazine PIN–UP, and in 2023, Ben Ganz won the Swiss Design award for a selection of projects. “Collecting Fashion”, a book edited by Alexandra Carl, to be published by Rizzoli later this year, is his most recent project.

This is the seventh edition of Guest Salons; an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research.

https://www.surfacemag.com/articles/ben-ganz-designer-day/

Guest Salons #7: Banal Objects with Ben Ganz

On Thursday 13th of June, International Library of Fashion Research will host a launch party & presentation of Viscose Journal issue 6 – fresh off the press. The issue focuses on fashion as constructed through words, language and writing. From the pens of fashion journalists and art critics to the conceptual wordplay of designers, the issue delves into the aesthetic and critical effects of "writing fashion” in and outside of fashion industries. Viscose Journal issue 6 extends on 'Writing Clothes: An Exhibition of Fashion Text', curated by Jeppe Ugelvig & Laura Gardner, opening on the same day.

LAUNCH: Viscose Journal no. 6 "TEXT"

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 the 6th edition of Printing Fashion, International Library of Fashion Research's Head Librarian Ilaria Trame will be in conversation with ILFR's Board Member Cecilia Dean on her venture as founder and director of Visionaire. The talk is titled 

 and will be held on Thursday 28th of February, from 4 to 5pm (CET).

This year's edition of the Festival will be held both physically (in Paris, 45 Rue Saint Roch) and online on the 28th and 29th of March. Through debates, lectures and conversations, this year we will  explore the concept of ‘Desire’.  Guests will survey this idea in connection with various aspects: the aspirational value of images and image-making, the commodification of bodies and the problem of representation in fashion media, the relation between sexuality, fashion and printed media, the increasing desire and fashionability of working in creative industries, the appeals of activism and political discourses in popular media and finally the increasing allure of fashion brand archives.

To attend the full event, or to zoom in for a specific timeframe, please register using this link: 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/printing-fashion-6th-edition-tickets-859299567137

Printing Fashion 2024

International Library of Fashion Research presents Slow Fashion Book Club! Once a month the book club will explore the intersection between fashion, environmentalism and social issues through a selected book. What impact does design, aesthetics and our sartorial choices have on the people around us and the planet? Slow Fashion Book Club is an open reading group for all seasoned industry nerds and curious newcomers. 

Info meeting upcoming Wednesday, the 9th of October at 19.00. 

Sign up via theslowfashionbookclub@gmail.com. Welcome!

Slow Fashion Book Club info meeting

“Paper Afore Press” is the International Library of Fashion Research’s second exhibition in collaboration with the National Museum’s textile department & conservators. A selection of printed objects and ephemera from our permanent collection will be investigated through various lab and research techniques such as x-rays, scans and microscopes, where different paper fibers, textures and delicacies will unfold. What’s the role of paper today? How has printing, binding, folding evolved over time, as we go from paper to electrons? And what is worth cutting down trees for?

Featuring Alia Mascia (XEROXED), Dr. Daphne Mohajer va Pesaran, Ilaria trame, Lydia Kamitsis, Marco Pecorari, Molly Maltman, Our Rags Magazine and Vassilis Zidianakis (ATOPOS). With a special sound installation by Frédéric Sanchez.

Paper Afore Press

'Writing Clothes: An Exhibition of Fashion Text', curated by Jeppe Ugelvig & Laura Gardner, is an exhibition that explores fashion as constructed through text, language, and writing.

Writing plays an important but often subliminal role in fashion's artful game of marketing. While the industry invests substantially in seasonally refreshing its visual messaging, in an industrial context (from press releases to magazine-making), text is similarly bound to the promotion of fashion. Fashion writing is a process of mystification, capable of revealing and concealing things that the image cannot. While fashion industry writing has a poetic dimension in its ephemeral seasonality, there also exists a long tradition of poetic and experimental writing in the work of designers, academics, and art critics. Practitioners have explored fashion-as-text, using fictional and poetic strategies to interrogate these dynamics.

Coinciding with the launch of the sixth issue of Viscose which also takes 'Writing Clothes' as its premise, the exhibition surveys historical and contemporary texts—from Stéphane Mallarmé to Shanzhai Lyric, Eduardo de Costa to Balenciaga—that take fashion as their subject. The exhibition puts these approaches together to explore the complex, poetic, and critical capacity of 'writing clothes.'

'Writing Clothes: An Exhibition of Fashion Text' is a collaboration between the National Museum of Norway & International Library of Fashion Research.

Writing Clothes: An Exhibition of Fashion Text

Guest Salons is an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research. Our fourth salon 'Fashion Stylists — History, Meaning & Practice' is hosted by the Danish writer, researcher and director of ALPHA Ane Lynge-Jorlén on upcoming Tuesday 24th of October at 18.00-20.00.

When did styling first emerge? Who were the pioneers of early fashion styling for fashion media? What are the workings and practice of styling?

Suggested reading https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fashion-stylists-9781350115064/ 

Guest Salons #4: Fashion Stylists — History, Meaning & Practice

On Saturday, October 19th, International Library of Fashion Research is hosting a book launch event for the exhibition catalogue that accompanies the new exhibition 'Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive’ that opens the same week at the National Museum of Norway. On this occasion, Marco Pecorari (guest curator) & Hanne Eide (curator of contemporary fashion, the National Museum of Norway) will also be in conversation with Elise By Olsen (founding director, International Library of Fashion Research) to elaborate on the themes behind the exhibition and present the catalogue, fresh off the press. Light refreshments, free notebooks & archive fever. Welcome!

The exhibition 'Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive' is based on Pecorari's book 'Fashion Remains: Rethinking Ephemera in the Archive' (Bloosmbury 2021), and explores flimsy printed documents such as invitations, catalogues, press releases and other paraphernalia created on the occasion of fashion shows and other special events in the fashion industry and beyond. Although generally the result of great creative and economic investment, these documents are often thrown-away after their original function and, for this reason, they are often dispersed and lost. 'Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive' explores this paradox and brings to light these overlooked printed remains through a presentation of six private and public archives. Including Palais Galliera, Diktats, Queer Zine Archive Project, Rare Books Paris, the National Museum’s research library and documentation archive, as well as yours truly, International Library of Fashion Research. 

Catalogue launch: Ephemeral Matters. Into The Fashion Archive

‘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

Please join us on Wednesday 29 May from 6pm for the seventh iteration of UKS’ event series 

 – moulding the new UKS spaces in Keysers gate 1 into an artistic, theoretical and social meeting place with the help of a variety of local and international agents from the arts and cultural spheres.

On this evening, UKS has invited Oslo’s International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR) to present a one-night-only display of a selection of material from their collection, alongside a selection from Geir Haraldseth’s own library and archive, and UKS’ vast institutional archive. There will be an eclectic mix of artistic and archival practices, from artists books and fashion magazines to art and fashion ephemera; as well as exhibition remnants left from a 

 there will be a conversation about archives with Elise By Olsen, founder of ILFR, Geir Haraldseth, curator and self-proclaimed hoarder, and Kaja Breckan, UKS’ longtime Office (and accidental Archive) Manager, moderated by Live Drønen, UKS’ recent interim Artistic Director. The discussion will touch on aspects of the respective archives; how an archive starts – and, eventually, ends – how its value shifts, its objects deteriorate, and the importance of keeping it alive.

 archives, preserves and mediates fashion’s printed matter. The library’s holdings consists of more than 15,000 objects including books, magazines and other kinds of ephemera dating from 1975 until the present. Through curatorial, editorial and educational projects, the collection is continuously activated.

 is curator Geir Haraldseth’s library and archive. The collection is currently deposited at Rogaland Art Centre in Stavanger. Thousands of books and magazines covering contemporary art, lifestyle and fashion from the 1960s until today is available for the public during the art centre’s opening hours.

UKS 'Commune': Archive Conversation & Display

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 Fritt Ord, Polestar and 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

‘Game Over! Fashion & Play’, the International Library of Fashion Research’s third exhibition project, showcases a selection of fun, playful and entertaining publications, invitations, lookbooks and other ephemeral materials that take the form of a game or toy. By showcasing these whimsical and amusing objects, the exhibition aims to raise issues in relation to the world of children and its tricky connection to the fashion system, to gendered and stereotyped identities, and to virtual and alternative realities, by posing the question: to what extent is fashion a game?

GAME OVER! Fashion & Play

Welcome to the 2023 edition of Fashion Research Symposium, 21st of September! The symposium is a yearly event for research, knowledge-sharing and critical discourse about fashion. The theme for 2023 is “Designing Beyond Human”. The Fashion Research Symposium is a collaboration between the National Museum of Norway and International Library of Fashion Research.

This year’s edition extends on the exhibition “Oltre Terra. Why Wool Matters” at the National Museum, and leading Norwegian and international researchers and practitioners are gathered to delve into the complex relationship between human and animal in the field of design at large. How can the informed choices designers make in their daily practice make room for a more-than-human coexistence, for a new ethology?

Fashion Research Symposium is free for all, with limited capacity. Please register via 

10.00 Film screening – Tactile Afferents

Born out of a close collaboration between Formafantasma and artist Joanna Piotrowska, the film Tactile Afferents is conceived as a filmic journey through touch and gestures, proximity and feel, primary modes of communication between beings – humans and sheep – that cannot relate verbally with each other. This film aims to take the viewer where human words have no power, to a space where persuasion passes through the hands, where power is administered thermally, transmitted through the temperature of the palms. Co-produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film and Nasjonalmuseet.

Since founding the research based design studio Formafantasma in 2009, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin have championed the need for value – laden advocacy merged with holistic design thinking. Their aim is to facilitate a deeper understanding of both our natural and built environments and to propose transformative interventions through design and its material, technical, social, and discursive possibilities. The exhibition Oltre Terra. Why Wool Matters, currently on display at Nasjonalmuseet is an ongoing investigation conducted by Formafantasma focused on the history, ecology, and global dynamics of the extraction and production of wool.


10.20 Welcome note by Hanne Eide & Elise By Olsen

Fashion Research Symposium 2023 is a yearly event for research, knowledge-sharing and critical discourse about fashion. The theme for 2023 is “Designing Beyond Human”. The Fashion Research Symposium is a collaboration between the National Museum of Norway and International Library of Fashion Research.


10.30 The Lendbreen Tunic – talk by Marianne Vedeler

The snow-patches and glaciers of the world are melting rapidly. While climate change haunts us, hundreds of archaeological finds emerge from the ice each year. Before the ice started to melt, the alpine areas in which snow-patches are found, were in general little affected by humans. Still, hunting and trapping activities have been carried out there since prehistoric times. The tunic from Lendbreen in Lom was preserved in the ice for 1700 years. The fabric and cut, as well as several traces of repair, can tell us a lot about textile production and of relations between humans and animals in the Iron Age.


10.50 New Materialism – talk by Siv Støldal

The new modernity is based on creating more meaningful products, clothing and materials, with an ambition for real connection with our emotions. Strong bonds will lead to careful usage, reparation over replacement, and inspire lower consumption through carefully curated personal collections of belongings. Fashion designer Siv Støldal presents various works based on wool that shed light on issues related to resource utilization, consumer culture and sustainability within design and fashion, and takes as a starting point the newly launched chair C2S, her ongoing collaboration with designer Stine Aas. C2S is an armchair made with three handmade thick wool felts swirling around an industrial steel frame. The textile is made from naturally pigmented wild sheep wool, Old Norse spæl and wool with vegetation ( grass, heather and juniper bushes) that gets picked up and tangled into the wool while the sheeps are grazing in the coast landscapes, utilizing the lowest grades of wool ( C2S) that are less attractive for yarn production and therefore have low commercial value.


11.30 Connecting Wool – panel with Lydia Hann & Amanda Vesthardt, chaired by Kirsti Bræin

Join Oslo National Academy of the Arts (KHiO) alumni Lydia Hann and Amanda Vesthardt in conversation with professor Kirsti Bræin as they delve into their shared appreciation of Norway's native sheep’s wool and how that material connection inspired 'Hyrdens Bro (Connecting Wool)'. 'Hyrdens Bro' is a monument to the recently concluded Connecting Wool collaboration between design students from KHiO and Tama University in Tokyo led in part by Bræin. Norwegian wool presents as many gifts as it does challenges and together Hann, Vesthardt and Bræin hope to imbue others with their love for this uniquely beautiful but underutilized material, grease, dirt and all.


11.50 The Norwegian Sheep - a Small Animal with a Huge Impact – talk by Anna Blix

Did you know that everyone had sheep in Norway before the industrial revolution, not because of the meat, but because they needed the wool? In this presentation, Anna will shed light on the 5-6000 year long history of sheep in Norway, and what implications modern agricultural politics have on this sturdy animal and the wool we get from it.


12.10 Safeguarding Sheep to Shop to Soil and Sustainable Solutions – talk by Ingun Klepp & Tone Skårdal Tobiasson

In the ongoing debate concerning a sustainable future for textiles, the holistic approach often falls by the wayside. Returning to more local, small-scale and resilient value-chains where every single gift from our domestic animals is valued, is a proposed path into the future. We propose a need to look our sheep in the eyes and thank them for what they supply us with: wool, warmth, food, landscape, soil health, biodiversity and human health. We have in recent years seen an increase in the beautiful use of local resources among start-ups, local industry and designers, mapping a path away from a destructive, globalized and highly industrialized fashion and food industry on the ground, though with little or no political support. In our talk we will celebrate a true green future without wool being pulled over our eyes.

12.30 Form-Defining Systems of Reverse Crafting – talk by Karin Peterson

Textile-form as dress is often synonymous with the form-defining system of cut and assemble. As such, cut and assemble both defines and restrains the discipline. In her talk, Karin will argue that the field of dress requires collaborative efforts to actively break the positioning imposed by social, institutional and organizational structures, in order to seek an economic and social system that does not choose short-term profit over long-term sustainability. This reasoning will be argued through practical examples using other imaginaries for processes of textile-form, where the crafting of form and surface as interdependent actions guide the search for other realities of textile-form, as dress and beyond.


12.50 Overlapping Footprints: Tracing Interwoven Histories Across Species – talk by Feifei Zhou

Every event in human history has been a more-than-human event. Humans and animals, for instance, could not get to where we are now without each other's efforts. But animals are rarely acknowledged properly for their essential role in human history. To be able to comprehend the Anthropocene - the current geological epoch we are in, we have to bring nonhumans to the center of the stage. The lecture discussed the concept of "feral": neither domesticated or wild, feral ecologies are beings that escaped human control, encouraged and spread by human-built infrastructures.

14.15  From the Grotesque to the Posthuman in Contemporary Fashion – talk by Francesca Granata

At the turn of the twenty-first century, experimental fashion presented grotesque bodies-out-of-bounds, which moved a critique to norms of beauty and propriety. This shift was influenced by feminism’s desire to open up and question gender and bodily norms and particularly the normative bodies of fashion, as well as by the AIDS epidemic. In the twenty-first century, fashion designers have continued this exploration, further breaking down boundaries between humans and non-humans, subjects, and objects. As the centrality of the human comes into question, in the wake of the current climate crisis, posthumanism has increasingly come to bear on experimental fashion.


14.35 Farming as Aesthetic Life Changer – panel with Else Thorenfeldt & Tom Downes, chaired by Adam Curtis

Positioning sustainable agriculture within the context of design, three regenerative farmers will discuss the role of nature in their practices. The idea of the farmer as a cultural producer will be explored as well as the topics of value creation and communication as connected to materialities.


14.55 Exploring the Nexus of Conceptual Design, Art, and Fashion – talk by Fredrik Tjærandsen

Informed by human sciences, nature and philosophy - Tjærandsen has produced works at the intersection of conceptual design, art and fashion. Tjærandsen is inspired by what the senses hold back and what we see and hear that cannot be entirely grasped by the intellect. Each of the senses harbors an inviolable mystery, reserved for itself and inaccessible to the others. Deeply invested in the potential of our body as an elemental form – a phenomenon with a profound capacity for meaning, as much as a multidimensional canvas for creative process and ideas – Tjærandsen works across numerous fields, be it in performance, set design, or art presents a crucial bridge between the optimistic, philosophical origins of performative design and immersive art, the present and where they have yet to delve.

15.15 From Paper Dresses Past to our Compromised Reality – talk by Vasillis Zidianakis & Steffi Stouri

Inspired by Issey Miyake’snine work-in-progress pieces made from paper for the 2008 exhibition XXIst Century Man, held at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo, we will focus on the traditional practices that informed Miyake’s practice as well as his vision and the fear that dominated the beginning of the new millennium. The work entitled Pleats dress, paper trial, research process 2007 was donated as a whole from Miyake Design Studio, and after Issey Miyake’ swish, to the RRRIPP!! Collection of ATOPOS cvc in Athens (GR), which consists entirely of paper garments. Although Miyake was influenced by traditional Japanese practices of paper-making and paper-garment-making, these designs completely abandon any formalist or utilitarian approach. Instead they allow the designer to explore a reciprocal relationship between material and form. These bold experiments are testaments that despite fashion’s traditional involvement in unsustainable practices, there have always been pioneers in fashion, experimenting with their fears of today and hopes for tomorrow.

15.55 Beyond Trends: A Renaissance in Artistic Fashion – talk by Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard

Paris-based Artistic Director Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard boldly challenges the status quo with unwavering commitment to meticulous individual research and dedication to artisanal savoir-faire and creates clothing that transcends the confines of fast and commercial fashion. Each piece tells a story of creativity, thoughtful exploration, and an unbreakable connection to artistry, serving as an ongoing source of inspiration for many. In a landscape where garments are often confined to the ephemeral cycles of seasons and fleeting trends, Louise Lyngh Bjerregaard invites us to reimagine our relationship with contemporary clothing. She advocates for a more deliberate and meaningful approach, inspiring and challenging the industry to recognize the intrinsic value of garments that make a statement beyond the breakneck pace of fashion, while maintaining a presence in retailers and runway shows.

16.15 The Chemist Tailor – talk by Manel Torres

A viral fashion moment was born during Paris Fashion Week in September 2022, when Fabrican founder and CEO, Dr. Manel Torres, sprayed a dress on supermodel Bella Hadid as the finale of a runway show. The viral moment captured the imagination of designers, product innovators, and consumers, seeking sustainable “mass customizable” products and flexible, efficient production processes that reduce environmental impact. Fabrican’s Sprayable fabric technology uses fibers recycled from discarded clothes and other fabrics.  The sprayable fabric can be washed, reused, and finally, when the garment has come to the end of its use, re-dissolved to create new articles.  Fabrican is committed to developing manufacturing for a circular economy, from sourcing of raw materials and utilizing energy-efficient technologies. Dr. Torres founded Fabrican in 2003, after developing the technology at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College, London. Fabrican continues to explore ever-wider applications of the technology, including in apparel, automotive, and healthcare.

16.35-17.00 Towards Future Archival Research – panel discussion chaired by Ilaria Trame

As we approach the end of the Symposium, we feel it is important to propose the archive – its histories, the past, the heritage and the references – as a starting point for future perspectives and approaches. The archival objects from the past need to result in a sympathetic guide towards establishing a ‘new normal’ in what we identify as design and beyond. Using the International Library of Fashion Research collection as a starting point, four speakers from the Symposium are asked to browse the shelves and select a document, book, publication that resonates with their research approaches in the field of this year’s Symposium. These objects will become a bibliography that needs to be continuously expanded even though the Symposium comes to an end.

Fashion Research Symposium 2023 'Designing Beyond Human'

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"

Guest Salons is an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research. Our second salon ‘Fashion Printed Matter & the Artist’s Book’ is hosted by artist Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson (Multinational Enterprises) on Tuesday 4th of July at 18.00-20.00.

What are the parallels between fashion printed matter and artist’s books? Where do we draw the line between artistic or commercial publishing? And what is high vs. low quality in printed matter?

Suggested reading https://halfletterpress.com/sustaining-publishing/

Free coffee & notebooks. Welcome!

Guest Salons #2: Fashion Printed Matter and the Artist's Book

Guest Salons is an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research. Our fifth salon is entirely dedicated to Merde Magazine, and hosted by the founder and editor-in-chief Molly Apple on upcoming Wednesday 24th of January at 18.00-20.00.

What is the history of non-traditional magazines? What does satire look like in publishing? How can we become less conditioned to mainstream fashion media?

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/niche-fashion-magazines-9781786721792/

Guest Salons #5: Merde Magazine

Velkommen til lansering av Vibeke Tandbergs nye roman Hestedagboken på International Library of Fashion Research, kommende onsdag 19. juni kl. 18.00-20.00. I samarbeid med Forlaget Oktober blir det enkel servering, opplesninger og salg + signering av den nye boken. Ses!

"Hovedpersonen i Hestedagboken er kunstner. For snart et år siden kjøpte hun en utstoppet hest, etter det forandret alt seg. Gjennom dagboken forsøker hun å forstå hestens påvirkningskraft og frigjøre seg selv som kunstner."

Vibeke Tandberg (f. 1967) er forfatter og kunstner. Hun debuterte som romanforfatter i 2012 med Beijing Duck og har siden utgitt romanene Tempelhof (2014), Joelle Joelle (2016), Eurydike Anal (2018) og Feber (2021). I 2019 kom essayboken Uvilje, og i 2020 debuterte hun som dramatiker med Hunder på Nationaltheatret.

Boklansering: Hestedagboken av Vibeke Tandberg

For the 5th edition of Printing Fashion on March 29-30, both days of the online event will be livestreamed from the International Library of Fashion Research in Oslo.

This year’s festival opens the discussion between key industry figures and the audience to reflect on the concept of “Resistance” present in the practices of criticism, the relationship between print and politics, the hidden figures of the magazine, printing and gender, and the resilient formats that confront the new challenges of the publishing industry.

We invite you to join the conversation with collaborators including Byronesque, Cora Corré (The Vivienne Foundation), Astrid Vorstermans (Valiz Publisher), Reading Room, Yousra Zein (Vogue France), Jeppe Ugelvig (Viscose), Alessandro Merlo (Coriandoli), Tayeau Fabrice (Feu Magazine), Simone Rossi (IUAV University of Venice), Saul Marcadent (IUAV University of Venice), Hanka van der Voet (Press & Fold), Elise By Olsen & Else Thorenfeldt (International Library of Fashion Research), Carla Fernández, Chiara Bardelli Nonino (independent curator & editor), The American Library in Paris, Milan Fashion Library, Marvin Mtoumo and more!

We would like to extend our gratitude to KD Press, our partner, and distributor of our eponymous magazine.

Printing Fashion 2023

The National Museum, Prints and Drawings Gallery (2nd floor) 

From spectacular invitations to rare lookbooks the exhibition “Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive” showcases ephemera from six different public and private collections, from France, USA and Norway. You will discover a broad array of unique catalogues, invitations, invoices, and illustrations dating from the 18th century to the present. The exhibition also contains a selection of objects and documents from the National Museum’s internal documentation archive. Much of the material have never been shown before.

The term ephemera was originally adopted by scientists to describe a fever and then a category of mayfly in the Ephemeroptera order. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the term became associated with the increased production and consumption of ‘less lasting’ objects typical of Western consumer culture, as depicted in vanitas paintings. In the late 19th century, the term was adopted by collectors and amateurs to refer to printed artefacts that were not intended to survive beyond their initial purpose. “Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive” explores how all these meanings resonated in today’s fashion ephemera. In the exhibition you can open drawers and immerse yourself in more than 500 such documents and objects from fashion houses such as Dior, Balenciaga, and Hermès, and designers such as Jean Charles de Castelbajac, Yohji Yamamoto and Martin Margiela.

The exhibition is based on exclusive loans from Palais Galliera, Musée de la Mode de Paris, Paris Musées, Diktats, RareBooksParis, Queer Zine Archive Project, International Library of Fashion Research and The National Museum’s library and archive. The exhibition has been developed in collaboration with guest curator Marco Pecorari and builds on Pecorari’s research into fashion archives and his book “Fashion Remains: Rethinking Ephemera in the Archive” (Bloomsbury 2021)

, musée de la Mode de Paris, Paris Musées, is a fashion museum whose collection encompasses around 200,000 items, including garments, photographs, drawings and archival material.

 is a bookshop founded by the collectors and historians Antoine Bucher and Nicolas Montagne. They specialise in rare printed matter from the 18th to the mid-20th century. 

, founded by Gregory Brooks, is an online bookstore that collects and sells rare books and printed matter.

 is a non-profit organisation created in 2003 by the LGBTQ+ activist, graphic designer, and archivist Milo Miller, together with historian Christopher Wilde. 

International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR)

, founded by Elise By Olsen in 2020, is housed in the National Museum and preserves a fashion ephemera collection of around 15 000 publications and print materials.

The National Museum’s research library and documentation archive

 holds a collection of ephemera relating to the history of the Norwegian fashion sector.

Ephemeral Matters. Into the Fashion Archive

As part of an upcoming collaboration betweeen the Norwegian graphic design union Grafill and International Library of Fashion Research we are excited to welcome long-term collaborators and co-founders of the globally renowned type foundry Dinamo, Johannes Breyer and Fabian Harb, for a Guest Salon on Tuesday 5th of March, from 18:00 to 20:00.


Johannes and Fabian will talk about their variable way of working, collaborating, and thinking. What are the parallells between typemaking and fashion? How have in-house tools have become a method for exploring new and old aesthetics, economic models, and potentials in typeface design? What are the structures, joys, and troubles that are part of running an independent label? How do one manage expectations, people, font updates, and tax returns? Please join the ride.


This is the sixth edition of Guest Salons; an active meeting point for free conversations around and beyond fashion, once a month at International Library of Fashion Research.

https://fashionresearchlibrary.com/1995/wear-me-fashion-graphics-interaction

Guest Salons #6: Typedesign Runway SS24 with Dinamo

“Dissecting the Archive” is a curatorial intervention by Else Thorenfeldt & Elise By Olsen. Two archives meet and greet each other: that of the International Library of Fashion Research – with its contemporary specialist library of books, magazines and other printed ephemera – and ATOPOS cvc – with its extensive collection of primarily paper-based garments, costumes and design artifacts from international designers. With paper as the project’s red 

, the curators dissect these two design archives with a delicate scalpel.

The curators examine the anatomy of an archive: how is it assembled, taken apart? Using clinical procedures and protocols, “Dissecting the Archive”

drills into the flesh of the two archives. Opening and closing acid free boxes, in the right order, intricately removing the delicate sheets of tissue paper – with gloves and robes – extracting the garments and printed matter one-by-one. The archival objects are then researched, removed and ruptured with an archeological approach – in order to rescue and recover the ‘dying’ medium that is paper.

ATOPOS cvc’s elastic exhibition site is turned into four dissection halls. The first preoperative stage is dedicated to preliminary preparation and examination. The intraoperative stage delves into the actual dissecting process, with the objects themselves instructing the operation – under the microscope. In the postoperative stage, the results are in the laboratory for analysis and inspection. And in postdischarge, the archive segue between life and death. The curators suggest that the archive awakens through activation, and that to be sealed in storage is an archive’s ultimate end and erasure.

Torsos and medical dolls are dressed in wounded or traumatized garments – either deliberately so, or by accident. Objects that express a lived life – and clothes as communicative tools – are put on display. Garments have been taken apart by housekeepers, dry cleaners or unattentive customers; perfectly ironed pre-creased and permanently pleated Pleats Please garments, repaired ‘by design’ wounds of Comme des Garcons wool sweaters or Margiela’s infamous label with four arbitrary white stitches on the garment’s back – cut off and no longer visible. These garments are misunderstood or misread, and as a consequence, permanently scarred (or improved?) for life.

“Dissecting the Archive” displays printed matter & ephemera such as books, magazines, invitations, sketches, posters and press releases, combined with clothing and costume made in paper. The objects are installed throughout ATOPOS cvc’s exhibition space; on mannequins and busts, in vitrines, on dry cleaner’s hangers, on the floor, on light boxes, in small accessible library sections, on a forensic wall with vitrines as frames, in trash cans, and so on. Additionally, ATOPOS cvc’s actual archive is turned into an open workshop space by appointment, where the public can interact with, learn about – and perform their own ‘dissection’ of – the archive.

By living inside ATOPOS cvc, and intervening with the objects, the curators have approached the archive as an active space. Various modes, manners and methods of exhibition-making have been tested without the pressures of public ‘success’ and thousands of square meters to be filled. Multiple ways of categorization, thematization and preservation have been considered. With time, the curators have been finding their way through a large realm of material, ultimately creating a web of ‘red threads’, common connections and oral stories. Looking at ‘disposability’ versus ‘timelessness’ – and paper versus textile as material – with a creative and critical lens, the curatorial intervention opens up for new possibilities and narratives around alternative archival practices.

With support from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Design and Architecture Norway (DOGA)

Dissecting the Archive

We’re excited to be joined by Craig Mathis, Bookstore & Distribution Manager at Printed Matter, Inc. in New York for his Guest Salon titled «Special Collection»! Mathis will provide a brief intro to Printed Matter’s history, zine culture, archiving, and the organization’s relationship with libraries large and small. Upcoming Wednesday 22nd of May at 18.00-20.00 at International Library of Fashion Research. Free coffee & notebooks. Welcome!

Printed Matter, Inc. (est. 1976) is the world's leading non-profit organization dedicated to the dissemination and appreciation of artists' books.

https://www.printedmatter.org/programs/events/1416

Guest Salons #8: Special Collection with Craig Mathis (Printed Matter Inc.)

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.

2024

2023

2022

Official opening

Tuesday, November 29, 2022 – 11:00–Wednesday, November 30, 2022 – 17:00