Abstract

Angelica Blechschmidt (1941–2018) was editor-in-chief of German “Vogue” from the 1980s to the 2000s. The legendary fashion pundit, dazzling fashion icon and international fashion photographer closely followed the world of couture throughout that period, always with her own small-format camera at the ready. Blechschmidt’s photographic estate comprises 101 boxes filled with some 5,000 cases containing 200,000 photographs in total. Her images capture both catwalks and exclusive backstage scenes that would normally be hidden from view. As part of a preparatory study undertaken by the Technische Universität Dortmund between 2023 and 2025, some of her images were used to test new digitizing and cataloging methods and to evaluate their scientific benefits. In the course of that study, a substantial body of photographs as well as sundry contextual materials were systematically viewed, saved and cataloged. The long-term goal of the project, which is to be undertaken with collaboration partners, is to catalog the entire archive and make it accessible both to researchers and to the interested public. It promises to be a major contribution to the global history of fashion, fashion photography and fashion journalism in the second half of the twentieth century.

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