Posting Patterns in Paris: A Fashion Library Instagram Case Study

Paris has positioned itself as a fashion capital and plays a unique role in the history of fashion as the birthplace of haute couture [1‐5]. Fashion collections in the city’s libraries are instrumental in the transmission of fashion heritage and fashion imaginaries. These collections have been documented by library scholars but largely neglected in fashion communication studies. Their holdings constitute invaluable resources for researchers of the domain, as well as for fashion brands reconstituting their archives. Beyond their (increasingly digitalized) contents, these archives also represent physical artifacts, documenting the traces of their producers and those who have handled and stored them. How do specialized fashion libraries in Paris use social media to communicate fashion heritage? This research explores fashion library communication by reviewing the Instagram practice of one of the first lending libraries of Paris, the Bibliothèque Forney.

Forney specializes in decorative and applied arts, including fashion, design, craftsmanship, and advertising. The library was inaugurated in February 1886, thanks to a donation bequeathed to the City of Paris by Aimé-Samuel Forney, a French businessman of Swiss origins devoted to arts and craftsmanship. The library was originally located in the 11th arrondissement of Paris and focused mainly on craftsmanship. Fashion was added as a focus in 1961, when it was relocated to the Hôtel de Sens in the fourth arrondissement. This medieval building at 1 rue Figuier, a street lined with fig trees, was constructed for the archbishops of Sens. The medieval building resembles a Harry Potter movie set, featuring turrets, spiral stone staircases, a dungeon, and neo-gothic gargoyles. It can be described as highly “instagrammable.” The library is part of the City of Paris’s public library system and listed on its website (https://​www.​paris.​fr/​lieux/​bibliotheque-forney-18), which features the library contact details and its Facebook, X, and Instagram accounts. The site directs readers to the portal of specialized libraries, where the library catalog is accessible: https://​bibliotheques-specialisees.​paris.​fr/​.

Some items are fragile and only come out for exhibitions, but Forney has been a lending library since its inception [6]. Of the 21,501 books available for loan, 4350 are classified as Fashion and Textiles, which is both the most frequently borrowed field and has the highest turnover rate. The remainder of books is divided between the categories of Graphic Arts, Design and Architecture, Arts and Crafts, Art History and Miscellaneous. These include a plethora of crafts related to fashion: leather goods, perfumes, and jewelry are all classified in the Métiers d’art section. To this day, clothing patterns can be traced and copied in the library. Patterns (motifs) of all kinds, including for wallpapers and textile printing, are a specialty of the library.

As one of the specialized libraries of the City of Paris, the Forney Library offers free and open access to everyone. To sign up for a (free) library card, one must be either aged 18 and over, or an art student, and bring an official ID. The library was originally intended to serve professionals in the arts and crafts, and therefore has a long tradition of late-night and weekend opening hours. Over the years, it has become a key resource for students and academics in the creative industries. The library also encourages the public to engage with the arts through exhibitions, events, and its open-access resources. During the case-study interviews, the librarian in charge of the Forney Public Services, Marc Senet, described the challenge of “using social media to show that while we preserve rare items, the library is still accessible and dynamic.”

Fashion libraries and documentation centers document, store, classify, and make available a vast array of fashion communication heritage. According to Elise By Olsen, founder of the International Library of Fashion Research in Oslo, they enable fashion to be produced “in/as media rather than clothes; we participate through looking, not by wearing” [7]. In Paris, the local luxury conglomerates and the generations of creative communities the city has drawn into its orbit have resulted in a unique richness of fashion collections in the city’s libraries. These include the Bibliothèque Forney, the research library of the Palais Galliera museum, the Centre de documentation of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD), and the fashion collections of the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art (INHA) library. The field of fashion has been significantly impacted by social media [8]. This encompasses libraries of fashion museums, fashion academia, and fashion and textile archives, which are increasingly active on social media [9, 10]. Key examples are the MoMu library, the FIT Special Collections, the Costume Institute library, and the International Library of Fashion Research (ILFR). Forney is the only Paris-based specialized fashion library collection with a dedicated Instagram account. The MAD museum account features regular posts on the Centre de documentation’s collection, usually weekly. The Palais Galliera museum Instagram account does not mention the research library more than once a year. The INHA occasionally features its library books on its main Instagram account. Yet, fashion ephemera are well suited for sharing on social platforms, as are books and periodicals. The hashtag Bookstagram has been used over 112 million times as of November 2024, whereas the hashtag Booktok has received over 35.5 million views. The fashion world has taken note: Fashion model Kaia Gerber runs the book club @libraryscience, Miu Miu launched “Summer Reads,” Marc Jacobs takes book selfies, Chanel organizes “Les Rendez-vous littéraires” book sessions, and Dior hosts “The Dior Book Tote Club.” However, fashion communication scholarship on libraries is scarce, even more so on the topic of Instagram.

The analysis of Paris’s fashion heritage has focused on museums, key figures, and texts, as well as on the city’s position in the fashion domain [1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 12]. International heritage research and Critical Fashion and Archival studies have focused on issues of digitalization, inclusivity, and access, as well as research on fashion materiality and ephemera [13‐18]. There is only one (Belgian) library member in the European Fashion Heritage Association. No European network assembles fashion librarians the way the Fashion, Textile, and Costume Special Interest Group of Art Libraries Society does in North America (ARLIS/NA). Lucile Trunel, who heads the Forney library since 2015, presided over the Art Libraries section of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) from 2017 to 2021. She documents the library’s activities in the art library (rather than fashion) domain, as do her staff [6, 19‐23].

Literature in the specialized field of fashion librarianship focuses on library content, its history, and its management [11, 12, 24‐28]. Generalized library and Instagram/social media literature includes marketing perspectives [29‐32], as well as collaborative and community strategies [33‐35]. The impact of social media on reading culture [36] and the challenges of TikTok [37] may also be of relevance to fashion libraries, as is social media research for fashion marketing [38‐40]. Two publications stand out. One is a meticulous review of the Instagram account of the Costume Library, by its Associate Museum Librarian, Julie Lê [9]. The other was authored by Ilaria Trame, the first Head Librarian at the ILFR, and points out the new popularity of library content on fashion social media and the potential of Instagram’s classification systems [10]. Trame argues that Instagram challenges traditional hierarchies of knowledge in the fashion system, recognizing the value of unofficial narratives alongside established histories. It is notable, however, that she does not refer to French collections apart from a Paris-based rare books dealer.

This study is based on the Online Communication/OCM Model [41, 42], which has yet to be applied to fashion libraries. It investigates the context of the library’s communication; the people producing, updating, promoting content; the audiences addressed and reached; the content produced; and the technical instruments and tools used. The research combines netnography, a literature review, and expert interviews over a 6-month period in 2024. The netnographic research encompasses both a detailed manual review of the Forney library account from June 25th to November 25th, 2024, and a review of international fashion Instagram accounts relating fashion libraries and book content. It is supported by data analytics of these accounts, using the Fanpage Karma as well as Modash analytics tools.

Professional librarians served as primary resources, as did social media staff of libraries. The complexity of keywords in fashion archives is notorious [43‐45]. The US-based Ask a Librarian service of the Library of Congress, the world’s largest knowledge repository, and the European Eurêkoi network were consulted for anglophone and francophone keywords and databases. Eurêkoi is led by the Bibliothèque publique d’information of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and culls experts amongst 600 librarians from 48 libraries located in France and Belgium to locate relevant publications. The keywords indicated were used in the recommended databases as well as in Google Scholar, and international specialized library catalogs.

To triangulate the data gathered reviewing the profile, content, engagement, and audience analytics, an in-depth expert semi-structured in-person interview was conducted with Marc Senet, the head of the Forney Public Services Department, who handles the library’s social media. This interview, on June 25th 2024, was followed by a second interview 6 months later. As part of a larger investigation of fashion libraries, experts handling fashion library collections and social media were consulted at the New School, the Costume Institute Library at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the MAD, and the Palais Galliera.

This case study contributes to the field of fashion communication by examining the largely overlooked role of specialized fashion libraries in Paris. It outlines the use of the Forney library’s primary social media account, Instagram, and its socio-technical and municipal context. It shows that its digital content is shaped by the library’s branding and affiliations, as well as by the staff’s background, affordances, limited resources, and sense of agency. The varied library collections and activities are showcased to a largely local audience, predominantly interested in patterns. Yet, local and international fashion researchers would also greatly benefit from its fashion holdings. These potential audiences could be reached by featuring fashion books, coupled with Bookstagram and Booktok hashtags. Following the example of the Instagram-savvy ILFR account, the library could geotag content and add the word (or category) “library” to its profile. A designated hashtag in the profile (as used by MoMu) could promote more user-generated content. Collaborations with fashion brands in the unique library setting could also increase reach; so could prioritizing people over patterns. Previous collaborations with the Modes pratiques research publication could be expanded to international critical research communities. This in turn may allow for re-evaluations of the fashion holdings, just as museums are repositioning their archives. Such an approach would also appeal to a new generation of patrons. Fashion researcher and curator Marine Kisiel, for example, only considers archives meaningful “when they do not isolate the past or its productions from the questions we ask in the present” [48]. This would furthermore be a particularly good fit for the open-minded and socially conscious approach of the library [6, 21]. Finally, the study indicates that specialized libraries, their communication staff, and fashion researchers may all benefit from the establishment of a European network of fashion librarians.