It’s the word that ate the fashion industry: archive.
Banana Republic has an “archive” collection, where it sells its Reagan-era T-shirts and pants.
Sydney Sweeney hasn’t merely worn a Versace dress, she has worn an “archival” Versace dress.
In Paris, you can buy 30-year-old Comme Des Garcons jackets and Margiela sweaters from the Archivist Store. That’s not to be confused with other resellers like Archive Reloaded, Archive Threads or Archive Vintage.
And new labels like Post Archive Faction and B1archive trade on the hazy authority of labeling something archival to sell their ideas.
“It’s a peculiar use of that term,” said Valerie Steele, the director and chief curator of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
Steele has a lot of familiarity with fashion archives in the traditional sense – mammoth, often climate-controlled storerooms of antique garments managed by fashion houses in various states of anal-retentive organisation.
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