This blog will take you into the world of archives, preservation, information management, and the history of fashion as I embark on my summer practicum at the University of North Texas, Texas Fashion Collection.
Through this blog, we look behind the scenes of one of the largest fashion collections in the US, with over 20,000 pieces of fashion artifacts. We hope to take you on a journey through my practicum experience, navigating the intricacies of the archive world.
My goal for this blog is to provide you with a view into the day-to-day life of a graduate intern, highlighting the projects I am working on and the skills and lessons I learn along the way. From organizing, creating finding aids and increasing access and awareness to historical documents and images to provide access to researchers.
It is interesting that I find myself back at my alma mater. I graduated in 1988 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Fashion Design. Fast forward 25 years, give or take a few (more giving than taking), and I find myself as an "accidental archivist" at a 102 year old heritage clothing brand in Fort Worth, Texas. Because of my tenor and institutional knowledge of the brand, I, along with another colleague, became the unofficial brand historians of Dickies Work Wear. Around twelve years ago, I was encouraged by the then vice-president of design to gather the racks of clothing that were in the basement of the company's adjacent office a block away and create a corporate archive. Along with over 1000 pieces of vintage Dickies clothing are also volumes of catalogs, advertisements, photos, audio/visual assets, and correspondence from the three founding members of the company. From a small 400 sq.ft. space to now having two dedicated areas in a new building, I help research and build heritage brand stories for designers and marketing teams.
As much as I have fallen in love and found a new passion in the boxes upon boxes of stacks of items, this is not my full-time job. So, my time spent organizing and archiving is very limited. My goal in earning my MSLS degree is to help me build and preserve brand history for the next one hundred years.
Another small world story.
In setting up the Dickies archive, I reached out to Annette Becker, Director of the UNT Texas Fashion Collection, around the time we were starting up the archive. I had heard about UNT's collection, and set up an appointment to meet and chat with Annette Becker to gather insights on creating a professional repository for vintage garments. She was a tremendous help and gave us several pointers on where to shop for archival materials, room preservation settings, and tips for caring for our textile artifacts.
I would not have guessed that so many years later, that connection would help me in my pursuit of earning a master's degree in the archival field.
Related Posts
