‘Please dispose of properly’: the context and continuance of fashion ephemera at the International Library of Fashion Research

Fashion ephemera, encompassing items such as lookbooks, invitations, show notes, and promotional materials, presents numerous challenges for cultural institutions seeking to collect and preserve this material. Although many museums have examples of this material in their archives, International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR), in Oslo, Norway, is the first public library to centre its collections around fashion ephemera. Positioned as a fashion library, ILFR therefore offers a unique approach, which foregrounds the materiality and tangibility of the objects in their collection, beyond their initial function as supplementary documentation of fashion industry events and outputs. This article examines the complexities of integrating fashion ephemera into library collections, the significance of the library in mediating access to this type of material, and the critical role ephemera can play in fashion research.