Famous designs worn by global icons, such as Princess Diana, Jackie Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor, during Zandra’s half a century in fashion are just some of the 500 dresses and garments that have been painstakingly prepared, catalogued and photographed over the past 18 months.
The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection has been created for the education community through a collaborative project between UCA and the Zandra Rhodes Studio with funding from Jisc.
Zandra said: "I am tremendously proud to announce that the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection is now available to the world.
“I am absolutely thrilled to unveil this high quality digital archive of 500 of my most famous designs, as well as drawings and behind-the-scenes footage in my studio, for access by today's fashion and textile students, designers, and researchers, and I hope that it will be an inspiration worldwide.
“I would like to thank the University for the Creative Arts, Jisc, the team at my studio and VADS for believing in the project and making this happen – it’s not easy to locate, prep, photograph, research, and catalogue 50 years of fashion collections but they have done a fantastic job."
Famous for her bright pink hair and cutting-edge designs, Zandra Rhodes has remained one of the most recognisable names in fashion over the last five decades and remains relevant with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Sarah Jessica Parker and Paris Hilton wearing her dresses today.
She was appointed UCA’s first Chancellor in 2010 and studied at Medway College of Art - one of the Kent and Surrey colleges that formed UCA.
Researchers and students at UCA have worked with Zandra Rhodes and her studio to not only catalogue her designs for future generations but also create contextual learning materials which explore her creative processes and production techniques, through video interviews, tutorials, and exquisite original drawings.
Professor Kerstin Mey, Director of Research and Enterprise at UCA, said: "We are proud and excited to launch the Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection.
“Zandra gave our researchers and students unprecedented access to her studio which has enabled them to catalogue 500 famous items from her personal archive that we will make available to a global audience.
“I am certain that this accessible, open education resource featuring one of the most influential British fashion designers over the past 50 years will stimulate and inform future generations.”
The project has been funded by a £110,000 grant from the charity, Jisc. Their aim is to make the UK the most digitally advanced education and research nation in the world.
“Zandra Rhodes’ generosity in opening up her studio and archives to the UCA team has made possible the creation of a beautiful and high quality digital resource to support students and teachers, and which is also available to the public at large.
“This project, however, has not just been about digitisation: students have played an active role, gaining ‘real world’ work experience and skills which will be an invaluable asset to them in the future.”
The Zandra Rhodes Digital Study Collection is now available at: www.zandrarhodes.ucreative.ac.uk
JISC EMBEDDED OBJECT
Banner image © Zandra Rhodes; garment photos by Jon Stokes
Image of Zandra in her studio © Hannah Kells
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The British Universities Film & Video Council’s (BUFVC) guidelines respond to the 2011 Jisc report, Film and Sound in Higher and Further Education: A Progress Report with Ten Strategic Recommendations. The report found that despite the exponential increase in the use of audiovisual material in teaching, learning and research in higher and further education, existing guidelines for the referencing of moving image and sound are often insufficient as they are based on standards developed for the written word. This has the effect of discouraging the citing of moving image and sound, as well as creating barriers in its discovery, use and re-use.
Professor John Ellis, professor of media arts, University of London, says: “Citation exists so that you can find the source of any quotation. The rules have long since been worked out for print sources. However, for moving image and sound, no-one quite knows what to do, so references are usually imprecise and sometimes left out completely. This guide now makes it possible for any writer (even a student) to lead their readers to the exact audiovisual source they are discussing. It might seem a simple problem to solve, until you realise that there are a multitude of different types of audiovisual source!”
The guidelines are practical, accessible and applicable to a wide range of different users across all disciplines. They encourage best practice in citing any kind of audiovisual item. They cover film; television programmes; radio programmes; audio recordings; DVD extras; clips; trailers; adverts; idents; non-broadcast, amateur and archive material; podcasts; vodcasts and games.
Professor Miles Taylor, director, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, says: “The difficulty of referencing such important sources has only been compounded by the increasing availability of much of this material online. The wonderful new guide produced by the BUFVC cuts through the uncertainty and complexity and will undoubtedly encourage historians and researchers in other disciplines to make greater use of audiovisual source materials – whether a computer game, a television channel ident, a previously unaired radio programme or a Hollywood film. I strongly encourage journal editors in particular to add it to the guidance that they provide for authors.”
To produce these guidelines, BUFVC established a working group of academics, researchers, journal editors and archivists, formed as part of the HEFCE-funded Shared Services project.
Richard Ranft, head of sound and vision, The British Library, says: "From the beginning of the 20th century, sound and moving image media in all their various formats have captured the most significant moments in human creativity and endeavour. Yet even in the present century, there remains doubt over the validity of referencing sound and moving images, whether in academic publishing or the popular media, due in part to the absence of accepted citation guidelines. By establishing clear instructions that are on a par with traditional bibliographic citation styles, this new publication will help unlock the vast resource that is preserved in sound and moving image archives."
This is the first edition of the guidelines and it will be reviewed periodically to respond to advances in technology, the development of new media platforms and the needs of the user. The BUFVC welcomes comments and feedback via avcitation@bufvc.ac.uk, or join the discussion by tweeting @bufvc #AVcitation.
An interactive version of the guidelines is available to download from the BUFVC website.
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Seven European countries are launching 4C (the Collaboration to Clarify the Costs of Curation) to help public and private European organisations invest more effectively in digital curation and preservation, sustaining the long-term value of all types of digital information.
Curation ensures digital objects remain understandable, accessible, useable and safe over time. 4C will provide practical guidance to help organisations estimate the cost of digital curation work and demonstrate the long and short term benefits.
Alex Thirifays, National Archives of Denmark, explains: “As well as bringing together a fragmented research landscape, the project will create an online ‘curation costs exchange’ which will help users to model their costs and in this way predict more accurately the sorts of costs and benefits that are likely to result from the positive decision to preserve. This will be useful for managers in major archives and data centres and we hope it will support preservation planning functions. These tools will be particularly useful for policy-makers concerned about long-term access to data. In addition we will publish a roadmap for future work in modelling costs which will help to clarify the areas which need more support.”
Neil Grindley, project co-ordinator from Jisc in the UK, explains: “It can be difficult to make a convincing case for investment in digital curation for two reasons. Firstly the costs of curation are currently hard to predict and secondly the short term benefits are hard to define because curation implicitly addresses long-term challenges.” 4C will address both concerns and provide practical guidance that will help practitioners persuade executives to invest in new services.
4C is described as ‘open and social’ and rather than waiting for perfect and polished results, they will be blogging and sharing findings as they go. 4C hope that this will encourage debate and increase the likelihood that their findings and guidance are useful.
Sabine Schrimpf of the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Germany, says: “We are looking to engage with many different kinds of organisations and to set up partnerships and have discussions with everyone who would like to get involved in the development of these tools. We’ll be inviting people to workshops and focus groups during the next two years, and we’ll be organising a conference to share our results at the end of the process.”
The partners involved are: Danish National Archives (Denmark), DANS - Data Archiving and Network Service (Netherlands), Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (Germany), Digital Curation Centre (UK), Digital Preservation Coalition (UK), Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (UK), Institute for Information Systems and Computing Research (Portugal), Jisc (UK), Keep Solutions (Portugal), National Library of (Estonia), Royal Library of Denmark (Denmark), Secure Business (Austria), UK Data Archive (UK).