European Fashion Heritage Association

The European Fashion Heritage Association has been established in 2014, following a successful project co-funded by the European Commission, in which for the first time both public and private archives and museums across Europe gathered together to share online their rich heritage of historical clothing and accessories, contemporary designs, catwalk photographs, drawings, sketches, magazines, catalogues and videos. 

The Association has now become an international hub, in which fashion GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums), brands, researchers and creatives can share experiences and best practices in the field of digitisation, open access, co-creation, reuse and valorisation of fashion heritage resources, contributing to the digital transformation in the sector and supporting the preservation and valorisation of tangible and intangible heritage connected to textile and fashion.

The European Fashion Heritage Association is also an accredited aggregator for Europeana. It serves more than 45 cultural heritage institutions contributing content from 15 European countries. In 2022 it has published more than 930.000 records in Europeana.

In addition to data publication, the European Fashion Heritage Association also supports its providers with:

• Advice on metadata production, mapping, and uploading,
• Advice on the use and mapping of linked open data terminologies,
• Advice on IPR issues and rights labeling,
• Free cloud storage of digital content,
• Digital curation of fashion heritage content on Europeana (including galleries, blog posts and virtual exhibitions),
• Regular publication of blog posts on the EFHA Journal and a bi-weekly newsletter that highlights the aggregated content and the partners providing it,
• Daily publication of fashion heritage content highlights on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest),
• Engagement in research and innovation projects in various EC programmes.

And facilitates workshops on:

• Metadata enrichment and data quality,
• Co-creation and exploitation of digital content,
• Digital curation.

Technical conditions for working with the European Fashion Heritage Association:

• OAI PMH or HTTP upload of metadata in XML or CSV format,
• If needed we provide an XLS template to ingest metadata.

Limitations: Collection to be evaluated prior to ingestion by the aggregator Scientific Committee.
Financial conditions: Participation and publication of content are free. Paying members receive extra support and promotion on EFHA channels and free access to training and networking events, plus priority engagement in international projects in different EC programmes.