Introduction: Telling the Story of Fashion Heritage

Fashion heritage is often regarded as something static, to be preserved, of high value and therefore not directly accessible to everyone. In this book we try to challenge this conception of fashion heritage, using as a core concept what heritage is about in cultural and immaterial terms: narrative. It is through this narrative that objects related to everyday life achieve a special glamour, a certain “allure”, as they are material evidence of human life on Earth. It is through the narrative embedded in certain objects—here, fabrics, apparel, jewellery, and accessories—that they attain their value and interest in terms of preservation. In social sciences, narrative is also a way of building theory. What we are looking for in this regard is the consistency of the narrative. Without narrative, human knowledge would not be possible. Narrative therefore has a strength of its own and is not limited to the repetition of “formula”; it is the basis for creativity and innovation that take us to new worlds. Before designing the boat, one must have the dream of sailing away. In this introduction we want to explore narrative as a line of thought that links the past to the present in a dream of the future.