1. EUROPEANA
FASHION
disclosing European fashion
heritage online
Marco Rendina
Fondazione Rinascimento Digitale
Connected to
#eurfashion
#mrendina
Co-funded by the
European Support
Commission
within the ICT
Policy Programme
EVA/Minerva Xth Conference
Jerusalem, November 13th, 2013

2. Challenges
and open issues
Many Fashion institutions, both public and private,
reconsidered the role of their archives as an
important resource. This led to new investments in
conservation and digitalization of their heritage,
but still some issues remains:
! Scattered access
! Lack of interoperability
! Rights issues
! Lack of exploitation strategies

3. Objectives and expected
outcomes
The main objective of the
Europeana Fashion Best Practice
Network is to build a thematic
aggregator on fashion, putting
emphasis on the quality, the variety
and granularity of content that will
be delivered to Europeana, and
producing a significant increase of
the fashion related content in it.

4. Aims and results of
the project
! aggregate 700.000+ digital
items of fashion content to
Europeana
! improve interoperability in the
fashion community
! create a specialised access
point for fashion content
! develop case studies for the
exploitation of fashion material
! build consensus and raise
awareness on best practices

5. The composition of our
project consortium
The Europeana Fashion Best
Practice Network will
encompass 22 partners from
12 European countries, which
represent the leading
European institutions and
collections in the fashion
domain.

6. The composition of our
project consortium

7. The composition of our
project consortium

8. The consortium
Public & Private
Europeana Fashion will ingest
content both from renowned public
institutions and private archives.
Institutions such as:
• Victoria and Albert Museum;
• Musée de la Mode et du Texile
at les Arts Decoratifs
• MoMu
• Museo del Traje
• Mude
The collections held by these
institutions represent, both in quality
and quantity, a strong percentage of
the world’s heritage on fashion.

9. The consortium
Public & Private
Private archives as
•
•
•
Rossimoda one of the world’s most
complete shoe collection from the
seventeenth century to creations for Christian
Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro,
Givenchy, Fendi, Christian Lacroix, Kenzo,
and others
Pucci and Missoni archives,
documenting 60 years of history of two of the
great fashion brands in all its aspects and
creative evolution
Pitti Immagine an archive documenting
60 years of fairs, cultural events and projects
for fashion in collaboration with the most
important players in contemporary creative
research

10. The consortium
Public & Private
The actions of collecting,
cataloguing, preserving and
archiving the fashion object have
two entirely different purposes:
•
to preserve, study and
exhibit [public]
•
to use (and re-use) [private]
memory and culture
preserved in the archives.

11. Europeana Fashion
Thesaurus
The Europeana Fashion project aims to
create a multilingual thesaurus in 10
languages, for fashion and fashionrelated concepts.
The thesaurus will be developed:
• as an aid for data entry
• as a knowledge base (open to
internal and external users)
• as a search enhancement tool
The Europeana Fashion Thesaurus will
be based on the Art and Architecture
Thesaurus (AAT)

12. Europeana Fashion
IPR guidelines
Rights management underpins
everything we wish to achieve for
Europeana Fashion.
That’s why we developed the IPR
best practice guidelines:
• Key to achieving project objectives
• Clarity for content holders
• Clarity for end users

13. What do the Guidelines cover?
→ Introduction
→ Key rights issues and considerations
→ Intellectual Property Rights: General Principles
→ The Europeana Data Exchange Agreement
→ How to seek permission from a rights holder
→ Risk Management
→ Appendices (Flowcharts and template letters)
→ Further Resources / Glossary

14. Social Media
! Facebook brings most people to the website
(>2400 friends)
! Our Twitter community is active and
fashion-oriented (>700 followers)
! Tumblr and Pinterest followers are highly
engaged (>700 followers)
! Museums and schools love reading our
newsletter (>650 subscribers)

15. Press
& Clustering Activities
! Coverage in major publications
(New York Times/International Herald
Tribune, Vogue)
! First International Conference
(Florence April 2013)
! Second International Conference
(London April 2014)

16. Tumblr Blog
A collaboration between the
Europeana Foundation and the
Europeana Fashion project.
Each month, this Tumblr will
showcase a different theme
curated by experts from the
fashion and cultural heritage
community.
http://europeanafashion.tumblr.com/

17. Setting up the collaboration
with Wikipedia
! We’ve set up a direct collaboration with
Wikimedia Chapters in various European
countries
! We are organising a number of so-called
GLAM-WIKI events around Europe
We plan to host at least 10 events in 8
countries starting from March 2013

18. What is an edit-a-thon
An edit-a-thon is “a scheduled time
where people edit Wikipedia
together, whether offline, online, or a
mix of both; typically focused on a
specific topic, such as science or
women's history” *
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:How_to_run_an_edit-a-thon

20. Wiki loves FASHION
For Wikimedia these events bring:
• more and diverse content to the
encyclopedia;
• domain experts to contribute
knowledge;
• and hopefully new editors (skilled
Wikipedians)

21. FASHION loves back
For Europeana Fashion, there are several
good reasons to organise these events:
• they are meant as a mean of
promotion for Europeana Fashion;
• they improve public knowledge about
fashion history on Wikipedia;
• they offer context to the beautiful
materials we bring online;
• they connect different communities
and bring them together around a
shared passion.

22. What we have done
till now...
Three edit-a-thons organised:
1. Nordiska Museet, Stockholm, 22
March 2013.
2. Centraal Museum Utrecht, 13
May 2013.
3. ModeMuseum Antwerp, 23
September 2013

23. What we have done
till now...
Edit-a-thon
Number of
Participants
Audience
MoMu
20
GLAM, Education & Research
Centraal
Museum
40
GLAM, Education & Research,
festival organizers and enthusiasts
Nordiska
Museet
47
Education & Research (students),
bloggers, journalists

24. Europeana Fashion content
on Wikimedia Commons

25. What’s next?
Europeana Fashion Challenge
12 Nov - 12 December
Stockholm, Tel Aviv, Padua

26. Edit-a-thons:
The basic ingredients
All you need to organise a
successful edit-a-thon is:
• solid event-planning;
• a well-lit room with decent wi-fi;
• a good connection with the
local Wikimedia chapter;
• any extended knowledge
sources;
• food and a positive atmosphere

27. Edit-a-thons:
The basic ingredients
Event promotion and partnerships:
• Start event promotion well in
advance;
• Advertise the event on all your
channels;
• Cooperate with the local
Wikimedia Chapter.

28. Edit-a-thons:
The basic ingredients
Things to remember when using
fashion content:
• All content on Wikimedia
Commons needs to be either in
the public domain or available
under a ‘free culture’ license;
• Discuss beforehand with the
management of your organisation;
• Think big, start small.

29. Edit-a-thons:
The basic ingredients
Finances. The expenses you should
consider:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Catering for the day;
Museum needs;
Supplying reliable electricity outlets;
Supplying a reliable WiFi connection;
Transportation;
Thank you gifts for speakers and
Wikimedia volunteers.

30. Some challenges
• Time/money/manpower;
• required expertise;
• cultural differences (GLAM
vs. Wikimedia community);
• multilingualism.

31. Thank you!
Follow us @eurfashion
Visit us at http://www.europeanafashion.eu
Contact me at rendina@rinascimento-digitale.it