00. Introduction
Yet this continuity raises questions of elitism, for couture garments commanding extraordinary prices remain accessible only to a privileged few and are often perceived as grotesque signifiers of exclusionary class distinction. Against this backdrop arises the pressing inquiry of whether archives can be democratized, opened to students, scholars, and enthusiasts who cannot engage with luxury through ownership yet still seek to commune with its artifacts. Respect for history is vital, but when respect hardens into paralysis, it stifles evolution rather than enabling it. Museums and archives embody the extremities of preservation, their holdings secured within sterile conditions that evoke laboratories or morgues, and fashion archives, particularly those of the heritage houses in Paris, are fortified and climate-controlled, accessible only through sanctioned hands. Like architecture, fashion is profoundly self-referential, and in the preservation of its ephemera, its cultural significance is both secured and reinterpreted, positioning the archive as a site of negotiation between exclusivity and accessibility, reverence and reinvention, permanence and transformation.
01. Probe
This collection elevates the act of archiving from a mechanical process into a sanctified ritual, situating it within the same realm of precision and reverence as a surgical practice. Research and documentation emerge, entwining personal fascinations with broader cultural currents. By interrogating how institutions and the fashion industry have historically operated, the work confronts both the vices inherent in conservation and the extractive costs of preservation and the consumption of resources.
02. Petite Mains
The process of transforming research into artifacts and ephemera recalls the museum handout, that fragile souvenir one may either treasure or discard, and equally the polished object presented in a white cube with its solemn engraved plaque. Petite mains, the phrase borrowed from couture ateliers, gestures to painstaking, almost invisible labor that renders tangible, as small stitches become structure.
This collection mirrors that intimacy by weaving together digital pin-ups, tactile moodboards, and collages composed of references both carefully researched and long imprinted in my memory from an immersion in fashion history. The final work exists as a culmination of citations and impulses, binding texts with fleeting screenshots, the archival with the ephemeral, until all are collaged in a shared aesthetic column.
03. Anemoia
Anemoia embodies the sensation of longing for a past that has never been personally experienced, articulated here through extensive research and the reconstitution of a historic site whose ground bears the weight of centuries of social unrest, economic stratification, and collective memory. Central to this investigation was the transformation of a meticulously crafted three-dimensional model into elevation drawings through the medium of the scanning bed, a recurring technique that both recorded and reinterpreted the unfolding trajectory of site development.
The resulting artifacts, including final photographs staged in the manner of museum documentation with architectural trace paper substituted for archival tissue, elevate the gestures of preservation into a poetic act of commemoration.
04. Muses
Muses traditionally signify intimate figures such as friends, lovers, or distinctive personalities whose presence animates a designer’s imagination. In this project, the role is reinterpreted into a constellation of carefully documented precedents that informed the spatial program of the archive.
Conceptual sketches function in concert with this intention, their arrangement recalling the alignments of a work-in-progress lineup where the unfinished and the becoming are granted equal importance. Descriptive fragments once taped to the studio wall are reconstituted as collaged labels within a digital pin-up board, preserving the intimacy of the process while reframing it as part of the completed composition.
05. Ancora
Ancora carries layered meanings, signifying continuity, repetition, and the persistence of something not yet realized. Within this project, it becomes the emblem of culmination, a moment of convergence where the fragments of research, design, and memory are gathered into a plea for fruition and permanence. The final documentation honors this intention through careful crediting of the images embedded within sectional collages, many of which were assembled from a personal archive of fashion references collected over years of immersion, fascination, and critical observation.
MUCH GRATITUDE TO:
AARON BETSKY, TETSUO TAMANAHA, AKI ISHIDA, BETH READER, ANDREW GIPE-LAZAROU, CHRIS PRITCHETT, CHUCK SWARTZ, JOSEPH BEDFORD, JAFFER KOLB, AND EVERYONE WHO SHOWED AN INTEREST IN MY WORK.
Jake Swartz
EmailVirginia Tech
Bachelor of Architecture +Industrial Design Minor
Summa Cum Laude
2018 - 2023
Chicago Integrative Studio
Chicago, IL2022
Steger Center for International Scholarship
Riva San Vitale, Switzerland2021
1100 Architect
DesignerNew York, NY
Present
Paul A. Castrucci Architects
Architectural DesignerNew York, NY
2023 - 2025
Columbia University
Course Facilitator for Pre-College ProgrammingNew York, NY
2022
noroof architects
Architecture InternNew York, NY
2020 + 2021
a83
Volunteer2023 - Present
School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech
Student-Run Lecture Series2020 - 2023
Studio Collective
Graphics Head + Board Member2019 - 2023
Tangible
AutoCAD
Bluebeam Revu
Enscape
Microsoft Suite
Rhino
Revit
SketchUp
V-Ray
3D Printing
Drafting
Drawing
Hand Modeling
Laser Cutting
Painting
Riso Printmaking
Screen Printing
Soldering
Sketching
Wire Cutting