Nina Ricci, Guy Laroche, and Yves St. Laurent are just some of the top designers making up a veritable who’s who of fashion at the London College of Fashion’s Woolmark Company Collection. These ‘cool’ wool fashions may no longer be on the catwalk but they can be seen online via VADS.

Umbrella dresses by Goma at Patou, 1966, London College of Fashion: The Woolmark Company

This week over 2000 newly digitised images have been launched online which complement these vintage fashions by key couturiers. These newly digitised images include examples from the ready-to-wear market by manufacturers such as British Home Stores, Berkertex, Windsmoor, Susan Small, and Marks & Spencer, as well as including more examples by top designers such as Mary Quant and Christian Dior.

The black and white photographs date from the 1940′s through to the early 1980′s and capture both the fashion of the time and the style of photography. The press releases, which in some cases are still attached to the photographs, give additional information about the garments, designers, manufacturers, photographers and any points of interest reflecting the promotional style and language of the time. All of the images were generously donated to the London College of Fashion from The International Wool Secretariat, now The Woolmark Company.

Suit by Marks and Spencer, 1982, London College of Fashion: The Woolmark Company

VADS now provides access to over 4,800 images from the Woolmark Company collection, which complements a number of other London College of Fashion collections already available online including its College Archive, Paper Patterns Collection, Cordwainer’s Shoe Collection, and Gala Cosmetics Archive.

Womenswear by Marks and Spencer, 1983, London College of Fashion: The Woolmark Company

For more information about the London College of Fashion’s Woolmark Company collection see http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/LCFWOOL.html

VADS offers over 120,000 fully cross-searchable images which are free to use and copyright cleared for learning, teaching, and research.

For more information about VADS collections, see http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections or contact VADS at info@vads.ac.uk / 01252 892723

A conference organised by the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS), a research centre of the University for the Creative Arts, has been held to celebrate the work of the JISC-funded Look-Here! project.

The Look-Here! project is a collaborative venture, led by VADS working in partnership with libraries, museums and archives across the arts education sector to develop skills and strategies for the creation, management, and use of digitised collections in learning, teaching, and research.

The conference took place on Tuesday 8 February 2011 at RIBA in London and included presentations from the nine project partners ranging from the unique Knitting Collections held at the University of Southampton Library, to the eclectic Museum of Design in Plastics at Arts University College at Bournemouth. The event also presented the work of the Library and Learning Services team at UCA to undertake a digitisation audit across the institution to inform the development of a new digitisation facility and future strategy for digitisation at the university.

Leigh Garrett, VADS Director, said, ‘It has been a great privilege and pleasure working with the custodians of such an amazing array of collections, many of which are currently difficult or impossible to access. The Look Here! project has clearly shown that with sector-wide collaboration much can be achieved in this often complex area. Custodians are now in a much better position to expose their collections more widely across the higher education sector to support learning, teaching and research, and the wider community.’

VADS staff past and present, including VADS Director, Leigh Garrett (back) and Director of the JISC e-Content Programme, Catherine Grout (centre)

The event also included a keynote speech from Catherine Grout, Programme Director of e-Content at JISC, who said: ‘It is essential that we find a way of continuing to grow and sustain our digital collections even in these challenging economic times. The Look-Here project has provided some excellent examples of the rich collections that can be developed within higher education and the kinds of skills and strategies that are required to deliver them.’

The conference included over one hundred delegates from across the arts education community and the wider universities and cultural heritage sector. Discussion covered a broad range of topics spanning the entire digital content lifecycle ranging from metadata and digital content creation, to user engagement and marketing, and from copyright and IPR to sustainability.

As part of the conference ‘fringe’ event, delegates were also invited to participate creatively and try their hand at knitting, inspired by the Knitting Collections at University of Southampton and demonstrations and displays from the Royal School of Needlework and Bradford College Textile Archive.

For more information about the Look-Here! project and to download the conference presentations, see the project website at: http://www.vads.ac.uk/lookhere