Press Release, London 30 January 2018
Press Release, London 30 January 2018
ART-CHERIE (Achieving and Retrieving Creativity through European Fashion Cultural Heritage Inspiration) is a 30 months Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project that is developing a vocational training course using Fashion Heritage to inspire professional fashion designers. On 18-19 January 2018, the ART-CHERIE consortium held its meeting at the University of the Arts London – London College of Fashion.
According to Meletis Karabinis, General Director of the Hellenic Clothing Industry Association: “ICT-based vocational and educational training tools on fashion cultural heritage are still missing. The European fashion industry needs inspiration and learning from a glorious past in order to add value to its products and boost its competitiveness internationally. ART-CHERIE will improve and extend the provision of high quality learning opportunities tailored to the needs of fashion designers. This project enables us to better anticipate current and future skills needed in the textile, clothing and fashion sector.”
The consortium discussed the ART-CHERIE 7-unit course structure, which includes a combination of taught material and self-learning activities exploring womenswear, colour, pattern, menswear, embroidery, knit and the consolidation into a designer portfolio. Two pilot units on womenswear and embroidery will be created as an online course using digital archives as a design resource. This will explore a range of research techniques applied to digital images of museum archives. The pilot unit will be designed by University of the Arts London – London College of Fashion.
The course valorises the collection from the Museum of Textile Prato by including their newly digitalised garments and fashion plates used within the pilot units. The museum has digitised around 60 garments, as well as other artefacts such as painting, photography and fashion magazines which have been contextualised within their historical period.
The new course will be piloted using a Moodle learning platform deployed by GNOSI NGO, a leading e-learning provider in Greece.
Prof. Jose Teunissen, Dean of School of Design and Technology – London College of Fashion stated: “We believe fashion heritage is an unexploited catalyser of creativity, and this new Vocational Education Training Course wishes to unlock European heritage resource through the use of digital tools. This will enable a wider reach of fashion heritage and to provide a platform within the Year of European Year of Cultural Heritage.”
In terms of impact Francesco Marchi, Director General of EURATEX European Textile and Apparel Confederation and project coordinator noted: “Fashion heritage is an important driver for boosting the creativity of designers and to keep European fashion and textile industries competitive at international level developing added value fashion products.”
The project will host three events organised in London, Greece and Italy in 2018 where the Course will be presented to fashion designers and industry professionals.
You can stay informed by visiting www.artcherie.eu, our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @art_cherie.
This project is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.