A New Virtual Dimension for Archival Fashion

The Virtual Fashion Archive is a new online space bringing archival fashion garments beyond the constraints of their physical form, and into the added dimensions of motion, interaction, and participation.

There are countless rare and significant fashion garments housed in museums and private collections around the world. Superficial, the studio behind the Virtual Fashion Archive, is using CLO virtual garment creation software to bring these amazing designs back into the poetics of motion, and broaden access for a global audience to appreciate them.

The platform features life-like digital doubles of garments that can be seen in motion, up close and from any angle, as well as seen back in the real world using the augmented reality feature. The inaugural collection has been curated together with The Museum at FIT in New York City and features garments from pioneering designers including Issey Miyake, Thierry Mugler, and Claire McCardell—all of which can now be seen from an entirely new perspective.

From Superficial:

“With the Virtual Fashion Archive we hope to not only encourage engagement with these extraordinary works of fashion and the pioneering designers behind them, but also to create a new frontier for archival fashion—one that’s not bound by physical constraints.”

“With CLO, Superficial studio found a way to transform your typical fashion archive into something that is boundless and transcends time. Some 20-25 years ago, we saw many digital library initiatives to archive literature and books, and now many of these are still digitally documented and available to the public. It is time for fashion design to follow suit; and not only just to preserve history but also to further the industry with perspective. We are grateful to see our technology being used to make these historical strides in archiving fashion designs to give us deeper direction into advancing the industry,” said Simon Kim, CEO of CLO Virtual Fashion.