the big project

In examining the spectacle created surrounding Alexander McQueen's death for my past Cultural Studies paper, I became infatuated with Walter Benjamin's notion that "fashion does not recognize death" (from The Arcades Project). Fashion, Benjamin understands, is constantly eliminating all "sudden ends and discontinuities" through its perpetual progression from one trend to the next. The relationship between fashion and death, or fashion and historicity, has led me to revisit the notion of the archive.  I've been thinking visually about how it can be employed in fashion to acknowledge historicity without pastiche, or how a garment can demonstrate the inevitable rejection of death in the world of fashion. This may end up leading to a larger project where I examine, critically and physically, the possibilities that arise when thinking of the archive and its role in fashion and recognition.

Also--- when i googled "fashion archive" i found this interesting project created by a coalition of european fashion schools, the Contemporary Fashion Archive. Is the paradoxical nature of an "archive" of contemporary fashion the only possible, or the only reasonable use of archiving fashion? I hope I will find out. but for now, this website is also a really good resource for finding contemporary fashion designers (if you don't mind that it ended in 2007, and that things like AMcQ's death are left un-updated).

http://www.contemporaryfashion.net/index.php/none/none/0/uk/home.html