Abstract
The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project was a unique collaborative venture between staff and students at the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) and their Chancellor, the British fashion and textile designer Zandra Rhodes. Working within the designer’s private studio space, this initiative has developed the first digital record of her personal collection of garments and drawings, supported and enriched with behind-the-scenes video interviews and tutorials, for worldwide educational use. This paper examines the benefits and strategies for undertaking the project in situ within the designer’s private studio environment. It outlines the need for a bespoke, flexible approach to digitisation in the visual arts that respects the individuality and creativity of the artist, whilst drawing on established documentation standards and expertise from the library, archive and museum sector.
Highlights
The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection1 project (2011-2013) has researched, catalogued, digitally photographed, and provided online access to over 500 garments selected from the private archive of British fashion and textile designer Zandra Rhodes, from across her career spanning five decades
It has opened up access to over one thousand pages of the designer’s fashion drawings, video interviews with the designer and video tutorials of production methods applied in her studio, for worldwide use in learning, teaching and research
Technical tutorials are a key element of practice-based art and design education and as Joanna Lumley stated at the launch of the Digital Study Collection in March 2013: ‘It’s so important for students to be able to look at how things are done
Summary
The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection project (2011-2013) has researched, catalogued, digitally photographed, and provided online access to over 500 garments selected from the private archive of British fashion and textile designer Zandra Rhodes, from across her career spanning five decades. We all know that it’s the hard graft and the late nights and the stitching and the broken nail and the two hours of sleep’ and ‘to see the work and the dreams behind everything’ (Lumley, quoted in Wignall, 2013). This JISC-funded project was led by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA), a specialist art and design university with campuses across Kent and Surrey. This paper will examine the process of creating a digital archive from within a busy, working fashion and textile design studio, and the lessons learnt from this collaborative venture between the University’s digital curation specialists and this renowned fashion house
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