Guardians of heritage

A great series of articles in the New York Times this weekend about luxury brands and how they use their archives.

The overview is here and discusses how business archives and archivists can reinforce key marketing messages, perpetuate brand myths and create PR narratives with examples from Chanel, Tiffany, Gucci and Pringle.

There are also individual detailed case studies from:

• Aquascutum - whose Archivist states that “society has a new perception of the relevance of history nowadays.  My part is bringing that to life within Aquascutum.”
• Christian Dior - their collection includes original haute couture samples as well as personal items belonging to Mr Dior such as travel albums and his handwritten collection of cooking recipes.
• Liberty - whose prime users are their fabric design studio and the company are keen to use the archive for brand heritage but not be enslaved by it.
• Patek Philippe - whose archivist believes that she has "more resources and that my work has a more active role in keeping the heritage alive.”
• Salvatore Ferragamo - where the eldest of the Ferragamo children, Fiamma recognised the importance of the archives and "considered culture to be an essential element for the elaboration and understanding of company strategy... and besides being a system of records, the archive is also a place for memory in the dynamic sense.”