Fashion as source of information

a technical approach to the organization and documentary representation of costumes

Abstract

This research aims to develop a systematic approach to the Documentary Organization and Representation of costumes. The analysis focused on bibliographic records of costumes in museums, identifying and comparing the descriptive elements present in these records with the normative documents. The research, exploratory in nature, adopted an objective methodology to approach the proposed problem. A terminology survey was carried out using controlled vocabularies, with the results submitted to national and international databases. The analysis focused on a representative piece of fashion: the mourning dress. The data collected was consolidated, and based on the descriptive elements identified, a methodology was proposed for representing costumes according to normative documents. The results showed that the records of the selected institutions - the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Costume Museum, the Kyoto Costume Institute and the FIT Museum - show significant variations in the descriptive elements, even when dealing with the same garment. The conclusion is that interoperability between information systems is crucial, respecting the specific characteristics of each institution and its users. Furthermore, it is essential to study regulations, theory and the social context in order to determine the essential elements in the representation of costumes in collections.