Award rules & Criteria
The ICOM Costume 60th Anniversary Award seeks to distinguish recent outstanding
contributions to all areas of research in fashion and dress history. Applications from early career
practitioners and emerging scholars are especially welcome, but all projects and initiatives less than three years old are eligible.
The award-winning projects will be invited to present their research or practice at the ICOM Costume
general conference (under the current circumstances, this is flexible as to whether recipients wish to join
us in 2022 or 2023, please see terms and conditions). The award for first prize will receive a stipend of
2,000 EUR towards travel and accommodation costs and registration fee. Two further smaller awards of
500 EUR for highly commended projects or initiatives will contribute toward travel costs and related
expenses (please see terms and conditions).
All award winners will have the opportunity to publish their work in the conference proceedings published
on the ICOM Costume, Fashion and Textiles mini site, with a full description of the awarded projects
published on the ICOM official website.
To be eligible for an award a project must:
- be less than three years old at the time of nomination
- relate to an area of museums or collections of costume, fashion and textiles: this could be theory,
practice, exhibition, education, conservation, teaching, research or design - be nominated by two ICOM Costume members, via email. Nominees do not have to be ICOM
Costume members. - be submitted in one of the three official languages of ICOM: French, English, Spanish. See the
nomination procedure below for guidelines on formatting your submission.
Projects may be submitted by individuals or organisations. ICOM Costume recognises that the size or
budget of a project is not necessarily an indicator of excellence – all project will be judged according to
their perceived impact in one or more of the criteria outlined below. Interdisciplinary project
Projects will be evaluated on how well they meet at least two or more of the following criteria:
- Innovative, creative and engaging approaches to objects, media and/or design elements
- Unique contributions to the field of fashion and dress history research
- Quality of research, scholarship and interpretation
- Wider impact on communities, museum visitors or society at large
- Potential to improve access to museum collections
- Potential to disseminate research into an aspect of fashion and dress history more widely
- Adherence to best practice in museums and/or academic research
- Awareness of the project’s target audience
- Overall excellence, encompassing the ability to serve as a model for advancing research in fashion
and dress history
Projects will be evaluated by the appointed evaluation committee comprising the following ICOM Costume members who are collectively able to evaluate projects in English, French and Spanish:
– Kaji Appolinaire, CDP Cameroun; National Secretary of ICOM Cameroun
– Alexandra Kim, City of Toronto
– Yayoi Motohashi, The National Art Center, Tokyo
– Vicky Salías, Museo de la Historia del Traje, Buenos Aires
– Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset, Château de Versailles (Chair ex-officio, ICOM Costume)
NOMINATION PROCEDURE
Nominations must be made via email, by two ICOM Costume members in good standing. Nominators can
nominate themselves.
A complete nomination for the ICOM Costume 60th Anniversary Award should include the following
information submitted by email as a single Word or PDF file, maximum 4 A4 sides in length. Image files are
also welcome: up to 10 image (jpg) files may be submitted separately, or images can be embedded in the
Word or PDF file.
- A brief description or biography of the institution or individuals presenting the project (max. 250
words) - A written overview of the project: this should include the project aims, objectives and outputs, and
its intended impact on or contribution to the field of costume, fashion and dress history (max. 2
sides of A4) - A brief summary of how it meets the award criteria
- A summary of the project’s target audience. If project evaluation has been carried out, please
include a brief statement regarding audience feedback or other means of audience engagement - You can include links to other material as desired, such as examples of exhibition catalogues, gallery
guides, brochures, videos, or handouts, or information about related public programmes and online
content. Please limit this to up to 3 attachments.
AWARD TERMS & CONDITIONS
- The award for first prize will received a stipend of 2,000 EUR towards the cost of travel and
accommodation and/or registration fee on production of relevant receipt - Two further smaller awards for highly commended projects or initiatives will contribute toward
travel costs and related expenses up to the amount of 500 EUR - Please note that receipts must be provided for all travel and conference-related expenditure
Given current uncertainty around travel restrictions in the coming months due to the COVID-19
pandemic, award recipients may choose whether they wish to attend to present their work either
during the 26th ICOM General Conference in Prague (20-28 August 2022), or at the ICOM Costume
conference in Autumn 2023 (location tbc).
Please note, at the triennial meeting in 2022 there is a separate conference registration fee to attend the ICOM Costume conference that is in addition to the registration fee for the 26th ICOM General Conference.
Please ensure you register for both if you wish to attend all the sessions and optional excursions.
AWARD SCHEDULE
The nomination deadline is 30 April 2022.
Nominees will be notified of the results by 31 May 2022.
Award results will be announced on the ICOM Costume mini-site prior to the Prague triennial.
A designated representative of each award-winning project is invited to present an overview of their research or project
at a future ICOM Costume conference in either 2022 or 2023.