Please enter the verification code found on your authenticity card.
The Archive System
A Catalogue Raisonné in Progress
The Archive is the permanent record of GOKSENIN AY.
It exists to document the clothing, jewellery and objects produced by the house — what they are, how and where they were made, the materials and processes behind them, and the quantities in which they exist.
An object does not disappear from the Archive when it is no longer available. What has been made remains part of the same record as what is being made now.
Availability ends. The record does not.
The Object
GOKSENIN AY works across clothing, jewellery and objects from Istanbul.
The Archive treats each piece as an object within the continuing body of work, rather than simply as an item in a changing retail catalogue.
An entry may record its name, year, materials, construction, place of production, edition where applicable, and other information particular to the object.
Some objects may exist only once. Others may be produced in a defined edition. Others may remain in production for longer.
Not every object needs to exist indefinitely.
Where an edition is declared, the number refers to the total number of examples that belong to that edition. It does not mean that every example was produced at the same time.
Production may take place across more than one run, according to material, process and the capacity of the people making it. The Archive records those examples as belonging to the same object.
The Hand
GOKSENIN AY is developed and produced in Istanbul through different makers, workshops and processes according to what each object requires.
Jewellery and metalwork are developed with independent craftsmen in the Kapalıçarşı — Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar.
Casting, forming, soldering, setting, finishing and polishing take place in small workshops where production remains close to the hand and to the individual form.
Other objects may pass through different hands and places. A garment and a piece of silver do not need to be made in the same way to belong to the same practice.
These differences are part of the record.
The Edition
Edition is used where the object calls for it.
Its size may be determined by the material available, the process required to make it, the capacity of a particular workshop, or simply by a decision about how many examples of that form should exist.
An edition does not necessarily correspond to a single production run.
An object recorded as an edition of twenty-five may be produced in several runs over time. What remains constant is the total number of examples belonging to that edition.
Once that number has been completed, the edition is complete.
The object may no longer be available, but its entry remains in the Archive.
Authenticity
Selected objects are accompanied by an authenticity card carrying a unique verification code.
Codes take the form:
7K2M-9QXA
The code is not the object’s edition number and does not describe its position within a production run.
It is a unique key connecting the physical object and its documentation to the record held by GOKSENIN AY.
Entering the code into the Archive verifies that the corresponding object is recorded by the house.
The card should remain with the object, but the Archive exists independently of it. If the object changes hands, its record remains.
The card travels with the object.
The record remains with the house.
The Record
The Archive begins with the first object and continues with the practice.
New work enters it without replacing what came before. Objects that are no longer produced remain alongside those that are currently available.
Over time, the record will contain different materials, different methods, different makers and different bodies of work. The practice is allowed to change; the Archive exists precisely so that those changes remain visible.
It is not a collection of current stock and it is not a retrospective assembled afterwards.
It is a record being written as the work is made.