Thailand's first fashion library opens in Bangkok

Thailand has opened its first library exclusively devoted to information about fashion and clothing design. The Bangkok Fashion Trend Center is an advanced state-of-the-art facility with collections of information covering international fashion and clothing, textile and garment manufacturing, footwear, leatherwear, gems, and jewelery.

The center, the largest of its kind in Asia, is part of the Bangkok Fashion City project funded by the Royal Thai Government to promote Thai fashion and apparel brands.

Said Pramote Wittayasuk, Director General of the Thailand's Department of Industrial Promotion and chairman of the Bangkok Fashion City project: The Fashion Trend Center is a completely new facility but it is already a vital information source for fashion education. Students, academics and industry leaders alike are already using the Center to explore international standards, catch up on global trends in design and manufacture, and gain inspiration for Thailand's own burgeoning fashion industry.

Added Wittayasuk: The fashion center brings together in one place critical fashion and apparel publications from around the world.

Many young designers simply cannot afford subscriptions to these highly specialized periodicals but it is vital as Thailand's fashion brands globalize that its leaders keep up with international trends and standards.

The Center also intends to become a repository for the look-books and design sketches of the leading Thai haute couture and ready-to-wear lines documenting a piece of Thailand's history that might easily be lost as companies grow, merge, and sometimes dissolve.

Expert leadership:
Sakchai Guy leads the Center and is also editor-in-chief of Lips Magazine. Said Guy: Thailand cannot hope to compete internationally unless its own designers have a sophisticated understanding of the trends and ideas that dominate the world's other fashion capitals Milan, Paris, London, New York. The Center provides that in a world-class facility that was itself designed only after visits to leading fashion libraries in Europe and North America.

Added Guy: We will be relentless in our pursuit to build Asia's largest fashion library with information on fashion design and garment manufacturing attending trade shows, fashion weeks around the world, conducting in-depth interviews with the world's leading designers, and collecting books, magazines, weblinks, video and other multimedia that will make the Fashion Trend Center in Bangkok the envy of the world of fashion. And we have assembled a world-class team of local staff members and Thai consultants who are able to get us to our goal.

Modern facilities:
Fashion trend center occupies 500 square meters on the sixth floor of Bangkok's Central World office building. The decor is modern contemporary with 60 percent of the space allocated for service area and information retrieval. An exhibition area occupies 15 percent of the space, offices for the Center staff at 10 percent, and 5 percent is set aside for multimedia. The computer system and storage take up another 10 percent.

The exhibition space will be one of the important assets of the facility, featuring display of work by Thailand's designers from the most famous to the very youngest. At the moment, this space is titled First View and features dresses from the Spring/Summer collections of Act-Cloth, Anurak, Boudoir, Fly Now, Grey, HeadQuarter, Issue, Kloset, Mae Fah Luang, Medium Rare, Metta, Nagara, Paothong, Pichita, Senada, Sretsis, The Legend, Tube Gallery, Zenith, and Kit-Ti's Jewelry. The exhibition provides an unprecedented early peek at new collections still coming together in Bangkok's top studios.

Hours:
The Fashion Trend Center is open to students, academics and members of the fashion and apparel industry from Tuesday through Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 08:00 p.m. The Center is closed on Mondays and Thailand's public holidays.

Located:
On the 6th Floor, The Offices at Central Word Building, Rajadamri Road, Bangkok