Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation

What Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation does

The Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation is a non-profit cultural foundation registered in Lithuania (Kaunas district) in 2015, built around the privately assembled fashion collection of founder and president Alexandre Vassiliev. The collection holds 50,000+ fashion items spanning the early 18th century to the present and was highlighted by Elle USA as one of the world's most important private fashion collections. The foundation's purpose is the preservation, study, and public presentation of fashion heritage through touring exhibitions, scholarly publications, and a digital catalog.

Its core deliverables are (i) temporary and permanent exhibitions staged in partnership with major museums including Palais Galliera, Hillwood Estate, VDNKh, and the Heydar Aliyev Center, with 350+ exhibitions curated since 1983 across 20+ countries; (ii) a publishing programme of fashion history books; and (iii) a free digital catalog launched in January 2018 on the CollectiveAccess collections management platform, with a stated scaling target of 500,000 catalogued items. The technology stack is therefore primarily a standard open-source museum/archival platform rather than a proprietary system.

The foundation operates as a non-profit. Revenue is generated from donations, exhibition fees, and merchandise sales, and the digital catalog is provided to the public free of charge. Its end users are museums and cultural institutions (as exhibition partners and lenders), fashion historians, designers, students, and the broader cultural public. The leadership team is compact: Alexandre Vassiliev as founder/President, Christophe Dubois Rubio as Vice-president, and Alma Puodziukaitiene as Head of foundation, supported by 11-50 employees.

Name

Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation

Legal name

VsI "Alexandre Vassiliev foundation"

Website

https://vassilievfoundation.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

The Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation is a Lithuanian non-profit that preserves and exhibits one of the world's largest private fashion collections (50,000+ items). It serves museums, fashion historians, and the general public via touring exhibitions, scholarly publications, and a free digital catalog.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Headquarters

HQ city

Kaunas

HQ country

Lithuania

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

The foundation preserves and promotes fashion history through a curated collection of more than 50,000 vintage clothing items, accessories, photographs, and a fashion-related library spanning from the early 18th century to the present. It monetizes and disseminates this collection by organizing thematic exhibitions at partner museums worldwide, publishing fashion history books, and providing free access to a digital catalog of its holdings.

Product overview

Alexandre Vassiliev Foundation operates as a private fashion heritage organization offering a Digital Catalog as its primary digital product, complemented by a physical Fashion Collection of over 50,000 vintage items spanning from the early 18th century to the present, and Fashion Exhibitions services that organize thematic shows globally. The digital catalog, launched in January 2018, provides free access to browse and request high-definition images of items across fashion, painting, photography, costumes, and decorative arts.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Digital Catalog Free online catalog covering the foundation's collection of 500,000+ planned items across fashion, painting, photography, stage and ethnic costumes, art and domestic objects, and ancient and modern books and magazines; users can browse objects, collections, people/organizations, and works, and request high-definition digital images of items. Built on the CollectiveAccess platform.
• Fashion Exhibitions Thematic fashion exhibitions organized in partnership with museums and cultural institutions worldwide; over 350 exhibitions staged since 1983 at venues including VDNKh Moscow, Palais Galliera Paris, Hillwood Museum Washington D.C., Heydar Aliyev Center Baku, Fashion Museum Riga, and many others.
• Fashion Collection (vintage holdings)

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Partnerships

Eleven partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Fashion Museum (Riga, Latvia)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOngoing partnership for exhibitions including 'Boudoir. The Unmentionable.', 'I love Art Deco.', and other fashion exhibitions at Fashion Museum Riga
• VDNKh (Moscow, Russia)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerMajor exhibition venue for fashion exhibitions including '100 years of fashion in Russia: 1915–2015', 'Glamour of the 80s', 'Resort Fashion', 'Spring and Fashion', and many others
• Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku, Azerbaijan)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerExhibition partner for 'Resort of the fashion from Alexandre Vassiliev foundation collection' and 'Modernism and Fashion' exhibitions
• Museum of Applied Arts and Design (Vilnius, Lithuania)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRegular exhibition partner for multiple exhibitions including 'Three Centuries of fashion', 'Aristocracy at the Helm of Fashion', 'Children's World', and many others
• Palais Galliera Museum of Fashion (Paris, France)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerPrestigious fashion museum that has hosted exhibitions including 'Fashion and Child 1780–2000' and 'Muscovite Memories 1860–1930'
• Hillwood Museum (Washington D.C., USA)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerHosted exhibitions including 'Friends and Fashion: An American Diplomat in 1820s Russia' and 'Konstantin Makovsky: The Tsar’s Painter'
• Liepaja Museum (Latvia)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPartnership for multiple exhibitions including 'Victorian jewelry', 'The Moment Before' (wedding attire), 'The Beginnings of the Railway in Liepaja', and 'The Fashion during the War 1938–1945'
• Daugyvenė museum-reserve (Lithuania)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerRegular exhibition partner hosting multiple exhibitions including 'Flowers and Fashion', 'Manor entertainment', 'Fashion and silhouettes', and 'A day in the 19th century manor'
• Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum (Istanbul, Turkey)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHosted 'Paris–St. Petersburg: Three centuries of European Fashion from the Alexandre Vassiliev collection' and '1001 Faces of Orientalism'
• Lithuanian Theater, Music and Cinema MuseumminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-organized 'Artists’ vacations between the wars' and 'Reflections of Vilnius musical and theater life in the 19th century' exhibitions
• Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn, Estonia)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerHosted 'A Moveable Feast. Art Deco Fashion Design' and 'Poetry and Spleen. The Victorian Female Image and Fashion' exhibitions

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Museo del Tessuto e della Moda (Prato): The Textile and Fashion Museum in Prato, Italy, curates European fashion and textile heritage and stages thematic exhibitions. It is a regional fashion museum with comparable curatorial mandate.
• Central Museum of Textiles in Łódź: Located in Łódź, Poland, this museum maintains one of Central Europe's largest textile and fashion collections and exhibits vintage European fashion. It overlaps the foundation's coverage in European vintage fashion and operates in a neighboring region.
• Museum at FIT: The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York curates rotating exhibitions on fashion history from its permanent collection of more than 50,000 garments. It is structurally similar to the foundation in scale and mission.
• Kyoto Costume Institute (KCI): KCI is a private, dedicated fashion museum and research institute in Japan with a world-class Western fashion collection. It is the most directly comparable organization in terms of private foundation structure and Western fashion heritage focus.
• Musée des Arts Décoratifs (Paris): Located adjacent to the Louvre, Musée des Arts Décoratifs holds significant fashion and decorative arts collections and stages major fashion exhibitions. It competes with the foundation for hosting tier-1 fashion heritage shows in continental Europe.
• Palais Galliera (Musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris): Palais Galliera is Paris's dedicated fashion museum, already a confirmed exhibition partner of the Vassiliev Foundation (hosting 'Fashion and Child 1780-2000' and 'Muscovite Memories'). It is a city museum focused on the same fashion heritage curation niche.
• Fashion Museum Bath: Fashion Museum Bath holds a collection of historic European fashion including items worn by royals and is run as a dedicated fashion heritage museum with public exhibitions. It is a comparable single-purpose fashion museum in scope though not size.

Others

• Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens: Hillwood in Washington D.C. is a confirmed exhibition partner of the foundation (hosting 'Friends and Fashion: An American Diplomat in 1820s Russia'). It is a broader decorative arts estate museum that periodically hosts thematic fashion exhibits, making it a venue/partnership peer rather than a direct competitor.

Broad incumbents

• Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A): The V&A in London houses one of the world's largest and oldest fashion and textile collections, with rotating exhibitions and a dedicated gallery. It is the closest British analogue to the foundation in terms of curatorial scope across 300 years of fashion heritage.
• The Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Costume Institute at the Met is the world's most prominent fashion museum, curating exhibitions and maintaining a globally significant fashion collection. It shares the foundation's core mission of preserving and presenting fashion history at the highest institutional level, though with vastly larger budget and institutional backing.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Facebookfacebook.com/AlexandreVassilievFoundation
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/alexandre-vassiliev-foundation

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles3 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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