Exhibiting Fashion: exhibition-making and curation as a catalyst for advancing innovative museum practices
Lead Research Organisation:
University of the Arts London
Department Name: London College of Fashion
Abstract
Exhibitions of fashion in museums are increasingly prevalent. They are enjoyed by visitors because they present familiar, visually appealing objects that reveal intriguing stories about personal identities and social histories, design and manufacture. They are popular with museums because they increase public profile and generate new visitors and income. Over 200 institutions in the UK hold fashion and textiles items. The majority are small and mid-sized regional museums like the partners on this project: the Beecroft Art Gallery holds the UK's leading collection of swimwear which comprises over 500 items from 1899 to the present; Manchester Art Gallery's collection encompasses a group of outstanding mid-20th century couture featuring work by Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Dior, Cardin and McQueen; Bankfield Museum, Halifax contains exceptional local womenswear from the 19th century.
The UK's important fashion collections are increasingly on limited or inadequate display (or not visible at all) due to funding cuts to the museum sector and reductions in specialist curators. Fashion objects also present specific display challenges because of their fragility and the need to provide a replacement for the human body. Blockbuster fashion exhibitions hosted by major museums do not provide viable professional models for less well-resourced institutions without specialist fashion curators. The potential of fashion collections in many small and mid-sized regional museums remains untapped.
This research will produce an 'exhibiting fashion toolkit' that will enhance the skill sets of non-specialist curators in small and mid-sized museums and equip them to produce resource effective, engaging and innovative displays. The toolkit will be created through observation and analysis of the development of three fashion exhibitions that respond to the collections, spaces and resources at each partner's venue. The toolkit will be available free, online, as a series of short films covering aspects of exhibiting fashion, illustrated by the exhibitions staged at partners' venues. It will offer visual and spatial-based strategies, such as inventive mannequin solutions and advice for the effective staging of objects, alongside practical solutions (including online options) for exhibiting fashion.
Research will be led by the PI from an exhibition-maker's perspective, a specialist approach that focusses on visually and spatially led exhibition development. The project will interrogate and expand the PI's original museological concepts of 'threshold' (transition into the exhibition space); 'landscape' (space inhabited by object and viewer); 'object' (exhibition content); 'the body' (physical and non-physical human forms). Research activities will employ methods from conventional curatorial and experimental exhibition-making practices with an emphasis on visual and spatial strategies.
The research will be supported by the Co-I using observational methods, including experimental documentary film-making, to capture live the interactions between the PI and curators as they develop the exhibitions. This builds on the Co-I's previous experience in practice-as-research co-produced with museums and archives. Insight gained through this research will identify the particular qualities of curatorial and exhibition-making approaches and will inform the development of the toolkit. The Co-I will also assist in assessing the impact of research on participants and audiences.
Should COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing measures be re-introduced during the project time frame we will develop each exhibition as an interactive audience experience through online outputs. Project Instagram and exhibition visitor guides will give public access to the research. A symposium, conference papers, articles in journals and museum publications will target the relevant professional and academic audiences to maximise impact of the research.
The UK's important fashion collections are increasingly on limited or inadequate display (or not visible at all) due to funding cuts to the museum sector and reductions in specialist curators. Fashion objects also present specific display challenges because of their fragility and the need to provide a replacement for the human body. Blockbuster fashion exhibitions hosted by major museums do not provide viable professional models for less well-resourced institutions without specialist fashion curators. The potential of fashion collections in many small and mid-sized regional museums remains untapped.
This research will produce an 'exhibiting fashion toolkit' that will enhance the skill sets of non-specialist curators in small and mid-sized museums and equip them to produce resource effective, engaging and innovative displays. The toolkit will be created through observation and analysis of the development of three fashion exhibitions that respond to the collections, spaces and resources at each partner's venue. The toolkit will be available free, online, as a series of short films covering aspects of exhibiting fashion, illustrated by the exhibitions staged at partners' venues. It will offer visual and spatial-based strategies, such as inventive mannequin solutions and advice for the effective staging of objects, alongside practical solutions (including online options) for exhibiting fashion.
Research will be led by the PI from an exhibition-maker's perspective, a specialist approach that focusses on visually and spatially led exhibition development. The project will interrogate and expand the PI's original museological concepts of 'threshold' (transition into the exhibition space); 'landscape' (space inhabited by object and viewer); 'object' (exhibition content); 'the body' (physical and non-physical human forms). Research activities will employ methods from conventional curatorial and experimental exhibition-making practices with an emphasis on visual and spatial strategies.
The research will be supported by the Co-I using observational methods, including experimental documentary film-making, to capture live the interactions between the PI and curators as they develop the exhibitions. This builds on the Co-I's previous experience in practice-as-research co-produced with museums and archives. Insight gained through this research will identify the particular qualities of curatorial and exhibition-making approaches and will inform the development of the toolkit. The Co-I will also assist in assessing the impact of research on participants and audiences.
Should COVID-19 restrictions and social distancing measures be re-introduced during the project time frame we will develop each exhibition as an interactive audience experience through online outputs. Project Instagram and exhibition visitor guides will give public access to the research. A symposium, conference papers, articles in journals and museum publications will target the relevant professional and academic audiences to maximise impact of the research.
| Title | Exhibiting Fashion is More Than |
| Description | Project Co-I, Dr Angela Piccini, wrote, filmed and edited a 10-min single-channel video work, Exhibiting Fashion is More Than. The work of docu-speculative-fiction draws on her observations of the PI and curators at Manchester Art Gallery working together to develop and install the exhibition. The work is both a documentary record of exhibition-making and a work of fiction that explores the imagined worlds of museum workers and time-travelling mannequins. The research questions guiding the work were: What are the impacts on an experimental documentary practice of working alongside makers of a fashion exhibition? What is the aesthetic and narrative significance of this; and how might experimental documentary develop new understandings of the exhibition-making process? |
| Type Of Art | Film/Video/Animation |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | N/A |
| URL | https://vimeo.com/848663099 |
| Title | Inspired! An Exhibition Development Script |
| Description | Project Co-I, Dr Angela Piccini, produced a hybrid storyboard-script drawn from her video and audio documentation of the PI and curators at Bankfield Museum working together to develop and install the exhibition. The creative work presents and comments on the process of exhibition-making, with a particular focus on the details of co-production and the relationships between the project's aspirations and vision and its realisation. Three copies were produced as A3 full-colour and placed in the exhibition for visitor use. The research questions guiding this work were: How does documentary video practice impact on conceptualizing and realizing curatorial toolkit design How might time-based media suggest new forms of toolkit design How might documentation of exhibition-making be developed into visitor-facing materials? |
| Type Of Art | Artwork |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | N/A |
| URL | https://museums.calderdale.gov.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/inspired-art-making-historical-fashion |
| Title | Inspired: the art of making historical fashion |
| Description | Inspired: the art of making historical fashion 27 January-21 December 2024 Bankfield Museum, Boothtown Road, Halifax, HX3 6HG This exhibition focusses on the work of makers from across the UK who design and make clothing based on historical dress for contexts ranging from commercial retail and historic re-enactment to performance in theatre and film. The exhibition demonstrates how makers develop garments from a historical museum garment or fashion plate to producing an item of historically inspired dress that is ready to wear. Alongside work by contemporary makers are garments, textiles and printed materials from Bankfield Museum's world class collection. The exhibition features a specially-commissioned film in which the selected makers discuss how access to authentic period items is critical to their practices, how they are inspired by objects in museum collections and how research based on original period garments reveals important information about historic design and manufacturing techniques. The exhibition also features the work of Tom Pye, costume designer for film, television and theatre, and how material from Bankfield Museum's collection shaped his costume designs for the BBCTV series Gentleman Jack. Costumes from the series are displayed alongside preparatory research, costume sketches and photographs from costume fittings. A second film features Tom Pye talking about his working process and the research he did in Bankfield Museum's collection. Other sections in the exhibition feature work by: • historical costume consultant, writer and illustrator, Eleanor Houghton • historical seamstress and costumer, Gaby Monet • House of Foxy, commercial women's fashion based on designs from the 1920s-1940s • James Graves, who specialises in period military and civilian clothing for reenactors • wigmaker, Lynn Kelly • Mapledoram Reproductions, a company reproducing men's and womenswear from the 1930s-1940s • Rob Cooper, specialist in Regency menswear • Dr Serena Dyer, Associate Professor of Fashion History and De Montfort University, Leicester • Wyte Phantom, modern corsetry inspired by historic designs Inspired also exposes the work that underpins the exhibiting and care of dress collections: a 'process wall' uses documents generated through the development of the exhibition (ground plans, project management documents) to reveal the curatorial and exhibition-making processes that underpin the exhibition. Additionally, the project Co-I, Angela Piccini, produced a hybrid storyboard-script drawn from her video and audio documentation of the PI and curators at Bankfield Museum working together to develop and install the exhibition. The creative work presents and comments on the process of exhibition-making, with a particular focus on the details of co-production and the relationships between the project's aspirations and vision and its realisation. Three copies were produced as A3 full-colour and placed in the exhibition for visitor use. The research questions guiding this work were: how does documentary video practice impact on conceptualizing and realizing curatorial toolkit design; how might time-based media suggest new forms of toolkit design; and how might documentation of exhibition-making be developed into visitor-facing materials? |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Visitor figures (based on previous years) are projected to be 25, 000 over the run of the exhibition. Public evaluation of the exhibition is currently underway and impact evidence will be added when the results of the evaluation are known. |
| URL | https://museums.calderdale.gov.uk/whats-on/exhibitions/inspired-art-making-historical-fashion |
| Title | Unpicking Couture |
| Description | Unpicking Couture July 2023 - July 2025 Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester M2 3JL The exhibition, Unpicking Couture, focusses on high-end fashion which has recently entered Manchester Art Gallery's collection through a National Heritage Lottery Fund Collecting Cultures grant. The exhibition features work by influential designers and fashion houses that represent seminal moments in fashion including Christian Dior, Elsa Schiaparelli, Azzedine Alaïa, Cristobal Balenciaga, Pierre Cardin, Vivienne Westwood, Yohji Yamamoto, Bruce Oldfield and Alexander McQueen. Sections of the exhibition are conceived to focus on themes relevant to contemporary audiences with content including contributions from external partners. Sections include: • Performance artist Cheddar Gorgeous has contributed a personal response and commentary, presented alongside a vivid yellow Balenciaga evening dress, that explores 'dopamine dressing' and the potential positive impact of fashion on mental health. • Local recycling and upcycling collective Stitched Up have provided a mended contemporary denim jacket which is juxtaposed with a conserved couture jacket by Schiaparelli to articulate narratives of wear, repair and sustainability. • Staged as a participatory life drawing class, a dress by Ossie Clark (worn by textile designer Celia Birtwell in the double portrait with Clark by David Hockney Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy 1970-71) encourages visitors to engage with 'slow looking'. • Through research on the original garments, Christian Kuhwald, Senior Lecturer, the Fashion Institute Manchester Metropolitan University, has created digital and physical work that exposes the pattern cutting techniques of an evening dress by Madame Grès and a coat by Balenciaga. Unpicking Couture also exposes the work that underpins the exhibiting and care of dress collections: a 'process wall' uses documents generated through the development of the exhibition (mind maps, sketch-books, SketchUp renders, ground plans) to reveal the curatorial and exhibition-making processes that underpin the exhibition; a timelapse film capturing the process of dress mounting (and how the craft and skill involved mirrors the work of dressmakers and couturiers) shows the preparation of a 19th century dress by Worth for display. The exhibition was used by the PI as the basis for an assessed project by students on the MA Fashion Curation and Cultural Programming course at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. Students visited the exhibition (funded by LCF) and were briefed to increase the diversity of designers included in the exhibition, specifically to highlight fashion designers working with either sustainable practices, designers working with digital media, designers challenging traditional binary fashion or designers from racially marginalised groups. In response to the brief students were tasked to compiled a draft proposal for a project that would increase the diversity of the designers and work featured in the exhibition either through a redisplay of one section of the exhibition, an intervention, a series of public events, an artist/creative commission, a digital output, or other 2D, 3D or moving-image based work. Additionally, the project Co-I, Angela Piccini, wrote, filmed and edited a 10-min single-channel video work, Exhibiting Fashion is More Than. The work of docu-speculative-fiction draws on her observations of the PI and curators at Manchester Art Gallery working together to develop and install the exhibition. The work is both a documentary record of exhibition-making and a work of fiction that explores the imagined worlds of museum workers and time-travelling mannequins. The research questions guiding the work were: what are the impacts on an experimental documentary practice of working alongside makers of a fashion exhibition and what is the aesthetic and narrative significance of this; and how might experimental documentary develop new understandings of the exhibition-making process? |
| Type Of Art | Artistic/Creative Exhibition |
| Year Produced | 2023 |
| Impact | Projected visitor figures (based on visits from opening date to present) are 1,145,936 for the 2 year run of the exhibition. Development of the exhibition has generated significant data for the production of the exhibiting fashion toolkit, through observation and analysis of curatorial practices, one-to-one interviews with curator participants and curators' and PI's sketch books and journals. Evaluation of the public response is ongoing. Preliminary findings indicate that visitors are very engaged with the exhibition and that the central themes and aims are being recognised. In particular, visitors are responding very positively to the 'process wall' - a display of graphic material made through, recording and illustrating the development and realisation of the exhibition. They recognise that this material is rarely made visible to the public and appreciate that it is shared in this exhibition. Some visitors acknowledge that, for the first time, it prompted them consider curatorial and exhibition-making processes during their visit. From the draft evaluation report: "We found the exhibition to have been particularly meaningful to amateur makers, and to those with family history in the garment trade. For these people, the exhibition is certainly a triumph in its opening up of the "how" elements as well as the history. This of course leads to a frustration that not all sides of the dresses on display can be seen, and to a desire to see more in-the-making; but also met the desires of makers to see more deeply into making - particularly through the video displays on construction, conservation and museology, and through the elements of the exhibition that focused on mending and sustainability. We also observed a strong interest in the histories told in the exhibition, especially in the pulling out of styles and their continuation, and in the background of particular "houses". For many casual visitors, these elements expanded their understanding of couture - for many, a hitherto somewhat baffling and "other" topic - and we note that in conversation and in survey responses there is evidence that the exhibition laid out and clarified couture's importance to a range of people - in particular, casual male visitors in older age groups. By opening up the curatorial process and the making of exhibitions, Unpicking Couture also emphasized the opening up of the fashion world and the window it gave onto the backstage of making - a neat unveiling (unpicking!) of two relatively closed design worlds. While this side of the exhibition fell flat on a minority of visitors (notable in their poor NPS scoring of the exhibition - see above), it was welcomed by a significantly large amount of people, and we observed a great deal of attention being paid to it. While couture remains a rarified business and by its nature not particularly local, inclusion of local organizations working in sustainability, and in particular the voice and thoughts of Cheddar Gorgeous, the exhibition brought a Manchester flavour appreciated by Manchester-based visitors. We also note here the pride that a number of visitors from Manchester expressed that the items on display were "ours", and that such a world-class collection resided in Manchester." |
| URL | https://manchesterartgallery.org/event/unpicking-couture/ |
| Description | Evaluation of the project is ongoing and findings will be added at a later date. |
| Exploitation Route | Evaluation of the project is ongoing and suggestions for further research will be detailed at a later date. |
| Sectors | Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
| Description | Manchester Art Gallery. Manchester Art Gallery is one of three main contributing partners to the project. Collaborative, practice-based research to develop a fashion exhibition at the venue (observed and recorded by the Co-I) is the central research activity for this project. Main contacts are: Miles Lambert (Curator: Costume) and Rosie Gnatiuk (Curator: Costume). Additional contacts are Kate Day (Outreach Officer) and Shamus Dawes (Visual Design Technician). |
| Organisation | Manchester Art Gallery |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | Ongoing contribution: to lead collaborative, practice-based exhibition-making sessions with each partner in order to stage a venue-specific fashion exhibition. This work is underpinned by application and exploration of the PI's original fashion exhibition-making modes of 'threshold', 'landscape', 'object' and 'body'. These sessions are observed and recorded by the Co-I and this data will provide the basis for the fashion exhibition-making 'toolkit'. Convening and chairing monthly all partner meetings online: meetings are to share project progress from PI, Co-I and all partners and to build project community. Convene and lead at introductory workshop attended by all partners and Co-I. At this meeting I led a number of workshop activities aimed at: introducing the project in detail; sharing our institutional, professional and personal aims and ambitions; sharing examples of previous work and working practices and aligning these to the original exhibition-making 'modes' (threshold, landscape, object, body) that underpin my practice and are the basis for collaborative practice-based work with partners. Convene and lead regular partner project meetings online and at partner venues: these meetings are attended by partners from individual institutions (observed and recorded by the Co-I) and are the main site for the collaborative, practice-based exhibition-making research. Activities at these meetings comprise: • Strategic Aims. Lead workshop to identify and map institutional aims and priorities and participants' aims and priorities for the project. Continue to map these against exhibition content, outreach and interpretation as the project progresses. • Site Survey. Using plans, sketches, photography and drawing, map the exhibition space and record any aspects or features relevant to the development and delivery of the exhibition. • Exhibition Narrative. Lead workshops to map potential narrative strands for the exhibition using mind-mapping, sketching, photography. Lead on reflection on and critical analysis of potential narratives to establish the core exhibition narrative structure and section topics. • Outreach. Collaborate with outreach staff from partner institutions and advise on potential topics and locations for contributions to the exhibition from the gallery's external stakeholders. Support external stakeholders to realise their contribution in the exhibition. • Object selection. Facilitate workshops to map available objects against the exhibition narrative and section topics using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and collage. Respond to object selection and groupings made by partners. • Interpretation. Lead workshop to identify creative interpretive strategies for the exhibition (based on the exhibition-making 'modes') using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and to plan text-based interpretive content. • Design. Lead workshop to identify creative design strategies for the exhibition (based on the exhibition-making 'modes') using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and respond to SketchUp renders produced by partners. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Ongoing contribution: to contribute to collaborative, practice-based exhibition-making sessions in order to stage a venue-specific fashion exhibition. These sessions are observed and recorded by the Co-I and this data will provide the basis for the fashion exhibition-making 'toolkit'. Attend and contribute to monthly all partner meetings online: share progress on individual projects and exhibition-making practices and build project community. Attend and contribute to introductory workshop attended by all partners and Co-I. Share institutional, professional and personal aims and ambitions; share examples of previous work and working practices and aligning these to the original exhibition-making modes of 'threshold', 'landscape', 'object', 'body'. Reflect on the work shared and discussion around the modes. Attend and contribute to regular partner project meetings online and at partner venue: Activities at these meetings comprise: • Strategic Aims. Contribute to workshop to identify and map institutional aims and priorities and participants' aims and priorities for the project. • Site Survey. Provide additional information for the site survey and consider aspects of the site as the exhibition project is developed. • Exhibition Narrative. Contribute to workshops to map potential narrative strands for the exhibition using mind-mapping, sketching, photography. Contribute to reflection on and critical analysis of potential narratives to establish the core exhibition narrative structure and section topics. • Outreach. Collaborate with outreach staff from partner institution and advise on potential topics and locations for contributions to the exhibition from the gallery's external stakeholders. Lead on the realisation of contributions by external stakeholders. • Object selection. Contribute to workshops to map available objects against the exhibition narrative and section topics using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and collage. Lead on object-based research. • Interpretation. Contribute to workshops to identify creative interpretive strategies for the exhibition (based on the exhibition-making 'modes') using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and to plan text-based interpretive content. Lead on the writing of text-based interpretation. • Design. Contribute to workshops to identify creative design strategies for the exhibition (based on the exhibition-making 'modes') using mind-mapping, sketching, photography and collaborate with gallery staff to generate SketchUp renders. |
| Impact | Exhibiting Fashion Toolkit Instagram: regular take-overs by the project of the Centre for Fashion Curation Instagram. Posts focus on recording and presenting curatorial and exhibition-making process and the exhibition outputs hosted by each project partner. |
| Start Year | 2021 |