The Gianfranco Ferré Research Center, Politecnico di Milano has contributed to the preservation of Italian design culture for five years now. Established in 2008 following the designer’s passing as the Gianfranco Ferré Foundation, the institution entered a transformative chapter in 2021, when its entire archival heritage was entrusted to the Italian university, becoming, then, Research Center.

Over the past five years, a sustained schedule of exhibitions and public programming, intertwined with academic research, has infused a distinct polytechnic perspective into the original Foundation’s mission of preserving the designer’s legacy. This ongoing evolution reaches a major milestone with the launch of the Research Center’s new website, offering an intuitive, visually refined platform that opens the archive to a global audience.

The website acts as an open pedagogical resource. The Biography section functions as an illustrated visual narrative, guiding both seasoned researchers and curious newcomers through Ferré’s life and architectural approach to fashion. Complementing this narrative, the Historical Archive section outlines the precise scope and metrics of the Center’s physical collection, offering full transparency into the vast inventory of garments, accessories, documents, photography, videos, objects, memorabilia preserved within its walls.

In the Collections section, users can systematically browse curated selections of Ferré’s Haute Couture and Ready-to-wear collections (both womenswear and menswear), catching a glimpse at both garments and accessories, but also original drawings – featuring 10 to 30 high-resolution images per collection. By making these primary historical sources easily searchable online, the platform continues its mission in advocating for a democratic access to fashion history – initiated by the Foundation’s participation as content provider for  Europeana.

The Research Center’s university-backed identity is then evident in the Augmented Archive section, which showcases ongoing initiatives in digital preservation and 3D garment reproduction. Visitors can inspect Ferré full looks via 360-degree detailed captures, or experience how garments move and interact with the human body through the looks’ digital twins, developed by researchers and students that have engaged with the archive in recent years.

The website also invites a deeper focus through its complete historiography of past exhibitions conceived  both by the Foundation and the Research Center, its record of ongoing research projects, as well as open-access publications, namely downloadable exhibition catalogues and monographs. Through this modern digital platform, Gianfranco Ferré’s intellectual and material legacy has never been more accessible.