Rising interest in fashion exhibition underlines relevance of Europeana Fashion
The ever-rising interest in fashion demonstrated by the increasing number of fashion exhibitions underlines the relevance of Europeana Fashion. Europeana Fashion embraces this growing involvement of the public and even takes it a step further.
Big showcase exhibitions at institutions such as the Metropolitian Museum of Art Costume Institute and Les Arts Décoratifs are attracting crowds in the hundred of thousands. Designer Hussein Chalayan, himself the subject of such a blockbuster exhibition, attributes the success of the fashion exhibition to the fact that it “reemphasizes that fashion is part of culture,” and added that, in the museum, the visitor is more free to view in the way he or she wishes: “you can look at the clothes as long as you like.”
In that sense, the fashion exhibition is very similar to Europeana Fashion. Its’ wealth of information on each object ties into the need to view fashion as part of our culture. Plus, viewing objects online also gives the user the liberty to study it for as long as he or she likes. Europeana Fashion and a fashion exhibition, in many ways, create the same experience.
However, Europeana Fashion goes further and even adds to that experience. It brings its’ user the luxury of hopping from the Louis Vuitton dress of Les Arts Décoratifs to the nineteenth century bracelet in the Centraal Museum in Utrecht in just a click, at any time of day and in any place in the world. Embracing and stimulating the rising fashion interest of the public, Europeana Fashion enhances the experience of fashion and gives the user more liberty than ever to study it.
By Gabrielle de Pooter, Communication Advisor for Europeana Fashion at MoMu Fashion Museum Antwerp