Fashion archivists are nothing new. They have long been the guardians of sartorial history by meticulously cataloguing garments and conserving their physical legacy. But in recent years, the practice has taken on a new format with the rise of the digital fashion archivist. Their go-to tool? A smart phone.
Instagram has become the medium of choice for these modern-day archivists. After gaining steam amid the pandemic, these chronically online history-keepers have managed the improbable: to capture the attention of Gen Z, a generation known for its restless scroll and dwindling attention span.
Perhaps that’s because Zoomers have an insatiable appetite for nostalgia. And fashion, obligingly, is experiencing a big archival renaissance: Brands are reviving vintage pieces, celebrities are stepping out in rare finds and trend cycles are constantly stuck in flashback mode.
Independent of brand deals and monetary incentives, these accounts are fueled purely by passion, whether for a specific designer, an aspect of fashion history, or simply the art of curation. Their feeds, managed alongside day jobs and family lives, are part education and part rebellion, dismantling the industry’s long tradition of gatekeeping. Scroll through accounts like @thekimbino, @africanstylearchive and @thewestwoodarchives, and you’ll see: Fashion history isn’t confined to books and museums anymore. It’s dynamic, accessible and clickable — deeper exploration is just a swipe away. These profiles aren’t all limited to recollections of the past, either; many offer historical context for current happenings, or assign new relevance to bygone moments.
Related: The Internet’s Favorite Fashion Archivist Has Aspirations Beyond the Feed
Consider the Georgian fashion publicist Keti Gagoshidze, who was only 18 years old when she created @datewithversace in 2018. After noticing a growing interest in nostalgic content, particularly related to the supermodel era, she decided to create a profile for the brand she so dearly admired, Versace — widely recognized for catapulting the glamazons of the ’90s into the mainstream. On a mission to preserve Versace’s legacy for those who never experienced Gianni Versace’s legendary years (herself included) and to celebrate the many triumphs of Donatella’s creative journey, Gagoshidze has no intention of leaving her passion for Versace behind as she pursues her own fashion industry career in PR.
While her primary focus is to cover the brand’s defining moments, Gagoshidze is in tune with her audience, paying close attention to their suggestions. “Their input can guide me toward particular themes or moments worth exploring further,” she explains. In her words, it’s all about ensuring “that these cultural memories are not only saved but also thoughtfully presented, allowing new generations to learn from the past within the digital landscape they live in.”
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It was also passion that drove Gabriela Gheorghe, a social media specialist, to preserve the surrealist world of her favorite designer, Elsa Schiaparelli, through @schiaparelli.archive. Although the avant-garde couturière has made remarkable cultural contributions by blurring the lines between art and fashion, Gheorghe felt that she was relatively overlooked in mainstream narratives. So in 2021, she intervened with a project devoted to “giving context to the past and the present of Schiaparelli,” as she puts it.
Her research process includes books and targeted Google searches, from which Gheorghe uncovers past moments, who wore what and the many sartorial references to Schiaparelli’s work she notices on modern runways. Eventually, she caught the eye of the maison’s current creative director, Daniel Roseberry. His attention was a nice bonus, but Gheorghe’s mission has always been clear: to build a living archive that’s accessible, engaging and informative, as she gracefully navigates the dance between past and present and fosters a dialogue between the two. In her eyes, this ability is what defines a digital fashion archivist.
Tianni J. Graham, Thom Browne’s archive manager and creator of @archivealive, doesn’t stray far from that thinking. She believes being a digital fashion archivist means preserving all things fashion and making them easily accessible. “Whether it be runway shows, interviews, ad campaigns or editorials, the material is collected to contribute to the curation and storytelling of fashion history,” she says. Graham noticed how accounts that posted past sartorial moments leaned more into visual moodboards, often stripping images of their context and failing to credit their sources. Naturally, she set out to change that.
Photo: Courtesy of Tianni J. Graham
Between an internship at the Met’s Costume Institute and a project processing the fashion magazine collection of Richard Martin (the former curator-in-chief of the Costume Institute, who is known for blending fashion and art history studies), Graham developed a strong sense of fashion legacies. She officially launched @archivealive on Twitter and Instagram in 2018.
Initially, her curatorial lens focused on fashion photography: the electrifying energy of the 1960s Youthquake, the magnetic sophistication of mid-1990s-to-early-2000s high-fashion runways, and iconic editorials and ad campaigns. But in 2020, her mission shifted. In response to the socio-cultural reckoning of that year, Graham redirected her attention toward celebrating Black history. “It was my way of giving credit to the unsung heroes who were pivotal figures in movements like Civil Rights, Harlem Renaissance and Hip-Hop using imagery I found most visually appealing,” she explains.
Most of these digital fashion archivists decide what to post based on what they find interesting, what feeds their souls. It may be an interview, an editorial moment or an up-close look. But curating a digital archive goes beyond posting imagery. In Gheorghe’s words, “it’s about contextualizing [these moments], recognizing their cultural significance and preserving them for future reference.”
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John Matheson, an archivist and the creator of @mcqueen_vault, echoes this view, explaining that the digital aspect is the easy part. The real work lies in researching, gathering credible sources and curating with care. With a long-standing devotion to Alexander McQueen dating back to 1996, Matheson wondered what a community dedicated to the late designer’s work would look like. In 2018, he built one. Matheson refers to @mcqueen_vault, which has over 183,000 followers, as a billboard for his physical collection and professional research exploring the designer’s oeuvre. Still, he doesn’t see digital archiving as a full-on replacement for in-person experiences, like visiting the Arc London or the V&A Archives.
As a scholar, curator and educator working between Austin, Texas and Chicago, Illinois, Rikki Byrd is no stranger to physical archives either, understanding that there are things you just don’t get online. But that doesn’t mean digital information is any less valuable. That thinking, along with a project called the “Fashion and Race Syllabus,” led to her founding @blackfashionarchive in 2018. Inspired by the idea of creating a repository indebted to the work of archivists trained in the field, Byrd built a space that would assist scholars and researchers in their work and give the general public access.
Even with meticulous research, running a digital archive account can involve managing certain risks. There are concerns about imagery issues, whether it’s around copyright violation, borderline explicit images that push the limits of Instagram’s guidelines or generative AI and its ability to create fake photos that might depict inauthentic moments. Such breaches could lead to an account being suspended or worse.
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Gheorghe raises another critical issue: The arduous work of digital archivists is often used without proper credit. She’s been through it many times — she posts some rare references or hard-to-find materials, only to see them circulate online without acknowledgement. “It’s frustrating, because a lot of time, research and care goes into sourcing and curating these archives,” she explains. While Gheorghe believes that there is a growing recognition of the work digital archivists do, there is still a long way to go.
Matheson, meanwhile, names misinformation as the greatest threat to the medium, and those who consume it. “There is no way to monitor [a post’s] accuracy,” he notes. “The amount of incorrect information being shared is staggering.”
To mitigate accuracy issues in his own research, Matheson works with museums and institutions. “It allows for subject matter experts to efficiently collaborate with curators for rich detail and accuracy, helping save time and effort tracking down details that are nearly impossible to find,” he explains. Byrd also has experience working with established institutions; she even served as a research consultant for the custom Gabriela Hearst suit Questlove wore to the 2025 Met Gala celebrating “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.”
Related: How Do You Become a Fashion Historian?
Still, when it comes to digital archivists collaborating with museums and other historical institutions, Matheson and Byrd remain exceptions rather than the rule. Byrd hopes that will change someday for those digital creators who do seek further growth, access and opportunity in their fields.
“People who work in social media understand strategy, audience engagement and language,” the educator notes. “That’s a unique opportunity to increase accessibility.” Graham is also on board with the prospect of more collaboration, whether it involves providing access to collections, sharing educational resources about licensing, curating digital exhibitions, publishing an online magazine or implementing other creative measures to visually display the institutions’ holdings.
Fashion archive accounts may have hit a peak around 2020 lockdowns, but others are still popping up as more and more individuals focus on building online personas. Still, for the most serious-minded digital fashion archivists, the pursuit is less about personal branding and more about a purpose.
Sure, there may be some overlap with influencer culture — as Graham notes, archivists’ posts often serve as sources of inspiration for the next wave of trends — but they eschew monetization in favor of establishing themselves as educators, historians and community-builders. Digital fashion archivists don’t just create content, they create a virtual sanctuary rooted in their devotion to fashion, bringing long-buried stories to light, democratizing knowledge and opening up archives that were once only available to insiders.
Source: Fashionista.com
