Everyone should welcome the opening of a new library. “Knowledge is found in books” says the maxim, even if the publications in question here are made up mostly of images. If we accept that photography is a language, then no doubt one can say that photographs can be read. Moreover, fashion and image are a pairing that has worked well for a long time. In the commercial field, of course, but also in terms of visual experimentation, to the point of linking the universe of a given photographic artist with a particular brand or designer: Sarah Moon/Cacharel and Chanel; Richard Avedon/Versace; Guy Bourdin/Charles Jourdan; Nick Knight/Alexander McQueen; Helmut Newton/Saint-Laurent, etc.
In A Coruña (Spain), the MOP Foundation continues to develop its cultural hub on the docks. On February 25, 2026, the institution inaugurated The MOP Library, an extraordinary spiral library dedicated to fashion and fashion photography. It was conceived as a space for research and consultation open to students, researchers, and informed enthusiasts.
With an initial collection of more than 5,500 volumes—books, magazines, catalogues, and monographs—the library presents itself as a specialized archive that can be consulted free of charge on site, by appointment via the foundation’s website. The initiative is part of a broader desire to document and pass on the visual history of contemporary fashion.
The collection brings together publications devoted to some of the major figures of fashion photography, and of photography as a whole, including Richard Avedon, Nan Goldin, Irving Penn, and Tim Walker. Added to these works are complete collections of magazines that shaped fashion’s editorial imagination—from Vogue Italia under the direction of Franca Sozzani to System, Purple, Interview, and Self Service—as well as catalogues and editorial objects conceived by leading names in art direction and graphic design. Conceived as a working tool as much as a place of memory, the collection chiefly covers the history of fashion from the late twentieth century to the present day. It will be enriched each year with around two hundred new titles.
Access is by prior reservation; users can consult the entire catalogue online (!) and select up to three works per one-hour session. With such a consultation library, the MOP Foundation is making available more than four decades of publishing devoted to fashion photography, thereby consolidating a rare documentary resource in the European landscape.
Jean-Jacques Ader
The MOP Library The first time slots are available from March 6, 2026, Monday through Friday, afternoons only. Access to the service is reserved for visitors aged sixteen and over.
