ART-CHERIE
Project summary
The aim of the ART-CHERIE (Achieving and Retrieving Creativity through European Fashion Cultural Heritage Inspiration) project was to exploit the Cultural Heritage in fashion through a vocational training course, for the improvement of EU fashion designers.
UAL has embarked on a mission to develop an online design tool for EU fashion designers through ERASMUS+ KA2: ART-CHERIE, a research project led by Professor José Teunissen. The university was one of five partners behind the project, which aims to promote and explore the use of digital fashion archives and heritage by shaping vocational training and developing e-curricula to train EU fashion designers to work with online archives to improve their designs. The ART-CHERIE project bridged the gap between the fashion industry and lack of specific expertise in SME’s designers by achieving a common VET – ICT tool for the fashion sector.
Course structure
The ART-CHERIE 7-unit course structure designed by University of the Arts London – London College of Fashion includes a combination of taught material and self-learning activities exploring womenswear, colour, pattern, menswear, embroidery, knit and the consolidation into a designer portfolio.
News and former events
Inspiration From An Online Archive: How to use amazing new online resources for design
December 13 2018, London College of Fashion
During the Erasmus+ multiplier event in London the partners launched and demonstrated these new online tools to designers. We held lectures on the future of fashion archives and showcased The Underpinnings Museum as an example of a digital-only museum. Followed by a presentation of the project and a pilot testing of the online units; one focusing on Womenswear and one on Embroidery.
Press Release: ART-CHERIE: New digital heritage resources to inspire fashion designers
30 January 2018, London
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.
Fashion Digital Memories EUROPEANA Fashion Symposium
May 2017
Professor Jose Teunissen, Dean of School of Design and Technology, LCF, attended the Fashion Digital Memories EUROPEANA Fashion symposium on 22-23 May 2017 in Venice where she presented the Art-Cherie project. EUROPEANA is the Meta-aggregator and display space for European digitised works through assembled collections shared by thousands of European museum and galleries. Europeana is also a network representing the heritage sector in Europe.
Transnational Art-Cherie partner meeting in London
18-19 January 2018, London College of Fashion
The meeting included the presentation of the Curricula Framework for fashion heritage to inspire designers, which included the collection of the Textile Museum in Prato made by Suzanne Baldwin and Polly Kenny including Unit 1 Womenswear and Unit 5 Embroidery.
Laura Fiesoli presented the digitisation process of the collection and archive of the Prato Textile Museum, as part of the deliverable of the project.
UAL-LCF Learning Technologist Andrew Cavers and Online Courses Business Manager Steve Williams, have both presented about UAL collaborative online tools for e-learning courses and the offer of UAL short courses.
Update on ART-CHERIE
Developing an online unit using online archives
At the moment LCF University of the Arts London – London College of Fashion is developing and designing the first pilot unit - given a general introduction on how to conduct research with womenswear as an example. Courseleader MA Digital Pattern Cutting and Garment generation. Susan Baldwin is taking the lead of the first unit on womenswear. Together with e-learning specialist Andrew Craver she is exploring a range of research techniques applied to digital images of museum archives.
In the very first unit Susan Baldwin will define and explain 3 different approaches that can be used for archive research. She explains Visual research as a literal research approach which involves extracting observed details from an image. In the context of this unit, visual research will be conducted on digital images of some selected garments, to identify key features and demonstrate how these might become potential design influences.
With Contextual Research she explores wider influences relating to an object or image. In the context of this unit it will refer to to material information in support of the archive pieces, and related historical, social and industrial influences which could become further design influences. Finally she will use Object analysis as the physical study of an object through observation and handling.
Research of this kind would be conducted formally by arrangement with museums which allow access to their collections; or informally by examining personal possessions. In the context of this unit, object analysis is introduced as a useful form of research through which to understand the internal details of garments, which may inform design influences.
The course uses and 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.