Inspiration from Alexander McQueen 'Unlocking Stories'

For 'Fashioning Our History' exhibition, we have taken inspiration from Alexander McQueen's 'Unlocking Stories' experimental space located at the top floor of the Old Bond Street Store. The location has a programme of exhibitions, talks and events aimed at inspiring students and aspiring creatives. 


'Unlocking Stories' is relevant to 'Fashioning Our History' in two major ways; the first being 'Unlocking Stories's curated programme of public events and events, similar to 'Fashioning Our History's series of workshops and lectures curated by Warren Reilly. 

The second being is the 'backstage access', to Alexander McQueen's works in progress, stories, documents of teamwork in the design and production process, and works from the collection. The Old Bond Street Store's exhibition aims to make public the "research narratives" that went into making famous McQueen collections.

We aim to take inspiration from 'Unlocking Stories' in how it exhibits the processes, conversations and research that goes into realising a final garment. So, 'Fashioning Our History' exhibition will not only feature the final garments produced from illustrations made by the public in the creative workshops, will also show the research, illustrations, notes, practice pieces and all other documentation leading up to the final garments.


'Fashioning Our History' exhibition aims to bring value to the unfinished pieces and research documents created throughout the programme as works in their own right through the exhibition format.

'Unlocking Stories' has a fun and busy overall appearance through the display of research material, sketches, fabrics and textiles, some displayed on mannequins and on tables with fabrics resulting in a similar layout and look of a textiles studio space.



A few ideas we may want to take inspiration from may be the placing of historical and reference photographs next to relevant garments, placing the garments in a historical context. Also the use of coat hangers and clothes rails with descriptions and illustrations pinned to the relevant hangers. (A useful point to this, however, is that with clothes rails viewers expect to be able to touch the garments to look through).




This raises the question of whether items will be available to be touched by viewers, i.e. whether sketches will be presented in sketchbook format which may encourage touch as well as the display of garments. 

An alternative way to present items like research, sketches and fabrics may be through a collage format on standing 2D boards. Presentation in the form of collages would present the material in a way that is less likely to encounter touch but also has a condensed appearance as opposed to individual items where the correlation between one and another is more visible and relationships are merged.

In addition to this, we may take inspiration from the common use of clothes rails, if not to display garments but to pin printed illustrations or photographs from the workshops or lectures. This would further place the exhibition in the context of fashion and textiles whilst the exhibition is being shown in a public library.

Photographs from https://www.guildmagazine.com/fashion/alexander-mcqueen-fashion-collection/#:~:text=The%20exhibition%2C%20%E2%80%98Unlocking%20Stories%2C%E2%80%99%20showcases%20pieces%20from%20the,unseen%20aspects%20of%20putting%20a%20fashion%20collection%20together.

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