Armenia: exploring national identity by collaborative European fashion design
Fashion Road: Dialogue across Borders is a 2-year collaborative project starting in November 2010 through which ten fashion designers from Armenia, UK, Germany, Romania, Denmark and Czech Republic will explore how aspects of national identity are incorporated into contemporary designs. The designers will study traditional costumes in the six countries, explore the role of those costumes in contemporary society, how people associate memories with clothing and how they preserve these memories.
"I was surprised to see how national costumes talk. By looking at the costumes, you can learn about the history, the culture, the weather conditions of the country of their origin. This project is aimed at using the universal language of fashion to explore and communicate the diversity of the cultural heritage between Armenia and Europe", says Arevik Saribekyan, the project initiator and director of Bristish Council Armenia.
Designers will view clothing in a cultural context and use modern technologies and approaches to present their interpretation of the countries’ culture and identity. They will prepare a collection aiming to raise understanding and appreciation of European cultural values and identity among the Armenian public as well as the Armenian cultural history and heritage among Europeans. The collection will be launched in an exhibition in Yerevan, Armenia and then tour the five European countries.
Five EUNIC members (British Council, Goethe-Institut, Institutul Cultural Român, the Danish Cultural Institute and the Czech Centres) joined efforts with the Armenian Fashion Council in order to support one of the EU strategic priorities: working with a European neighbour and contributing to better European integration through cross-border collaboration and cultural exchange. Although the cultural institutes work together on a more regular basis within Europe,cooperation with Armenia, where most of the cultural institutes do not have a local office, is a new approach. The project won a co-funding grant from the European Commission.
