21.07.2025
costume heritagefashion conferencefashion heritageglobal connectionsInternational Conferencetextile heritage
The announcement for EFHA2025 symposium is here – see you in Versailles!
How can we build a more connected and sustainable future for fashion, costume and textile heritage?
On 11 December 2025, the European Fashion Heritage Association (EFHA) and the Château de Versailles will host Weaving Connections, an international symposium dedicated to forging stronger ties across the global landscape of fashion and textile heritage. Taking place in the emblematic setting of Versailles—a historic cradle of sartorial innovation—the event will serve as a space for exchange, reflection, and future-facing collaboration.
Fashion, costume, and textile heritage are not merely collections of beautiful objects—they are vessels of identity, memory and cultural expression. Yet, due to institutional boundaries, disciplinary divides, and geographic distances, many who work in their preservation and interpretation often operate in silos.
Weaving Connections responds to this fragmentation by offering a dedicated forum where curators, conservators, scholars, archivists, and other professionals can come together to share methodologies, address shared challenges, and imagine new ways of working across institutional and national borders.
Participants will include a wide spectrum of actors: professional networks, academic research groups, museum and archive associations, conservation studios, digital platforms, and community-based organisations. Together, they will explore topics ranging from innovative curatorial practices and conservation strategies to sustainable futures, digital access, and the politics of representation in fashion and textile heritage.
Versailles offers more than just an extraordinary backdrop. As a site that played a crucial role in the development of European aesthetics and luxury industries from the seventeenth century onwards, it provides a historically rich context for rethinking the cultural and political stakes of costume and textile preservation today.
This collaboration between EFHA and one of Europe’s most iconic heritage sites marks a significant step in building new models of global cooperation in the field.
Weaving Connections is now welcoming proposals from individuals and organisations working at the intersection of material culture, design, and heritage. We particularly encourage submissions that engage with innovative approaches to digitisation, conservation, interpretation, and public engagement. Projects addressing underrepresented histories, decolonial practices, or sustainability are especially welcome.
We are keen to hear from:
Professional and academic networks
Museums, archives, and libraries with dress and textile collections
Conservation studios and laboratories
Independent or local heritage groups
Digital platforms and storytelling initiatives
Community organisations and research collectives
The symposium will feature keynote lectures, roundtables, case studies, and networking sessions, with the goal of building a long-term, transnational network dedicated to the advancement of costume, textile, and fashion heritage.
To express your interest, please submit a short proposal (max 300 words) and a brief biographical note (max 150 words) to: [email protected]
Deadline for submissions: 10 September 2025
Notification of acceptance: 20 September 2025
Join us in Versailles this December to help shape the future of fashion heritage—one connection at a time.
