I approach the man behind the glass. He doesn’t look at me. I hand him my passport. “Why are you in Norway?” he asks, flipping through its pages. “To work”, I reply, plainly. “What kind of work? ‘Research’, I respond, reveling in the evasiveness (surely, a privilege). He goes again: “What kind of research?”.  I finally spill the beans: “fashion research”. He repeats the F*word as his eyes finally meet mine. Norway and fashion. Fashion and research. I can’t work out which combination of words threw him. Perhaps all four.

Fashion with a capital M goes with Paris. Research, surely, with something like science. What’s the point of studying something so frivolous? Can one we really think through fashion? Yes sir, my sense of self hinges on it. And that is how I pay my rent. In this case, it involves writing something about the International Library of Fashion Research for the glossy(?) pages you are holding in your hands. The library holds fashion ephemera, i.e. printed matter, which include show invitations, studio memos, look books, a range of fashion magazines and a modest selection of academic writing, among other things. Hence Revue Faire’s interest in the library, and my being in Oslo for two days.