Curating Fashioning Our History @ London Borough of Culture

 'KIMONO: Fashioning Identities' was shown at the Heiseikan Special Exhibition Galleries in June 2020 to August 2020.  “This exhibition traces the kimono from its inception some eight hundred years ago to its role today as a symbol of Japanese culture with increasing sway on the contemporary fashion scene. Featuring some of the finest extant textiles, paintings, prints and other artworks drawn from collections in Japan and around the world, KIMONO: Fashioning Identities promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to consider the past, present, and future of this quintessential Japanese garment."  In summary, the exhibition's primary concern is recognising the garment in its contemporary context and reconnecting it to its history through education of the public. The exhibition shows historic garments in back-lit glass cases along with paintings of kimonos from the 16th century onwards to show their context within culture and art history of Japan. A chronological pro...

 'Disobedient Bodies' was shown at The Hepworth Wakefield, resolving around the concept held by designer JW Anderson wherein works by fashion designers were paired with works by fine artists to explore the way that artists and designers see and depict the body. Anderson's work often has an undertone of exploring sexuality and gender within his work. This has been explored in the exhibition in how portrayals and ideas of sexuality and gender are seen in how we present the body. Contrastingly, it can also be seen in the exhibition, how ideas around sexuality and gender are able to be broken through fashion. The pieces on show include sculptures by Henry Moore, Sarah Lucas and Barbara Hepworth. Their placement in the space was decided by 6a architects, whose exhibition design uses fabrics from Anderson's archive to create a series of rooms. The exhibition involved a 3 fold curation process – the fabrics of Anderson's archive decided and separate a series of rooms; thes...

 'Dior Illustrated' was shown at The Somerset House, London, curated to showcase work by illustrator Rene Gruau who worked for Dior during much of the 20th century. Dior approached the somerset house to exhibit graua’s prints, invited to look at the archive and selected work to help show a narrative. The exhibition was curated by Gritta Gschwendtner which opened with a large-scale collage of posters by Gruau encased in an 8 metre box of gauze. The curator aimed to make a spatially stunning environment for the predominantly two dimensional work.  The exhibition showcased groundbreaking artworks including original illustrations for Christian Dior Parfums, vintage perfume bottles, sketches and magazines, as well as a selection of Dior Haute Couture dresses personally chosen by John Galliano including a special dress designed by Galliano himself, in homage to Gruau. 'Dior Illustrated' drew my attention because of it's creative presentation of 2D collage, particularly th...

 'Punk: Chaos to Couture' was shown at The Met in 2013 as a fashion exhibition displaying the various trends and history of the punk subculture. I decided to look at this exhibition for inspiration for the curation of FOH due to the possibility of including collage and wigs in the exhibition. Additionally, punk is known for the subculture's focus on breaking stereotypes and narratives which plays an important role in the FOH overview. The wigs in this exhibition are all uniform in style but are used to supplement the garments by matching the colour of the garment or outfit. Two mannequins stand either side of the rationale, most likely at the entrance to the exhibition. They stand in a hexagon on a podium with plaques containing information on the garments in front of each mannequin. The use of a plaque on the podium laying flat may not be possible in the curation of FOH. This is because, to be able to read the text the viewer would need to be close enough to look down on t...

 Derrick Adams is a NY based artist who made artworks based off his archival research of influential African-American fashion designer Patrick Kelly. The exhibition was held in the NY Public Library's Countee Cullen Library Branch. The artworks were shown on the walls of the library so that the public can enjoy the pieces and be inspired by the archive's collection and the work of African-American creatives. The project was funded by the Studio Museum Harlem in partnerships with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. In the centre of exhibition is Adam’s ‘Mood Board’ series which are large collages that respond to Kelly's legacy as a " formalist who imbued social context and humour into his creations.” “These abstract collages incorporate Kelly’s vintage clothing patterns, as well as his iconic fabrics, colors and shapes: bold and colorful geometric forms, contours of the female body, and buttons and other embellishments. The works exalt Kelly’s formal e...

 Recently I have been looking at examples of past fashion history exhibitions and I came across 'Britain Creates 2012: Fashion and Art Collusion' during my research. 'Britain Creates 2012: Fashion and Art Collusion' was a fashion and design project by the British Fashion Council in preparation 2012 Olympic Games as part of the Olympic Games' culture program.  A selection of artists and designers from around the world were invited to pair up with British artists and designers to create iconic pieces that would combine their unique skills and interests. Each piece was unveiled at a VIP gala fundraiser before going on display at the V&A. The money raised from the gala formed part of a bursary to encourage and support emerging artists and designers and to help encourage future collaborations. As this project has many similarities to FOH (the celebration of the project's local area, the overall aim to support emerging artists and designers), I thought this would ...

 Following the confusion of whether FOH would be able to take place with regard to social distancing guidelines, members of the FOH team had an important zoom meeting with our creative director, Warren, to deliver the updates on the project and how things will run. This blog post will contain my notes from the meeting and my reflections on the updates... Firstly, I am very pleased that the exhibition and overall project will still be going ahead! We are now looking at the project to take place in spring 2021 (February - April). The main change to the project, brought about by covid, is that we are now planning for the workshops to take place with students online. I was pleased to hear that materials will still be provided and distributed to participating students despite the drawing workshops not happening in person as this was my first concern upon hearing the shift to online resources. This enables the project to continue to achieve it's aim to benefit students by opening opportu...