Learning from the David Collection

This paper elaborates on a 2nd semester project at the MA [x] in Fashion and Textiles, that is conducted in collaboration with the David Collection museum in Copenhagen. It will showcase three student projects and how the students individually work with various implications of cultural heritage and cultural appropriation in design. As the MA is born out of the user-led, situated and contextual principles of so-called wardrobe research, it will be highlighted how this lens can help offer pathways for engaging with museum objects that hold deep levels of cultural heritage. Especially, how ‘learning with history’ with a student mix of Danish and international students can open up new fashion narratives and design approaches that are informed by local and historically rooted knowledge from the students’ individual countries of origin. Ultimately, the paper will be addressing how museum objects and issues of decolonialization can be utilized as a leverage for opening up new fashion landscapes that deviate from the dominant Eurocentric one, and furthermore offer European students new perspectives of their own fashion heritage. As such the paper highlights how a museum collaboration can form new learning methods for students to expand on ideas about what fashion is and should be.