Vogue Trotter
If you're curious about the clothes you wear, the brands you love and the stories behind some of the biggest names in fashion, both modern and historic, then an exhibition is a brilliant way to expand your knowledge - all while absorbing the fun of travelling.
Exhibitions, whether fashion or fine art, are a conversation between past and present. The subject is examined, whether it is a designer or a theme, and its story narrated and placed in context for a modern audience. During the past few years our fascination with fashion and design has been aroused to such a level that these exhibitions have become a major money-spinner for museums.
The much-feted Yves Saint Laurent retrospective in Paris last year received 2,000 visitors daily. The Victoria & Albert's exhibition 'Hats, An Anthology' by Stephen Jones received 95,000 visitors during its three-month show in London and a staggering 250,000 (2,715 a day) during its residency at the Queensland Art Gallery last year. Small wonder museums are keen to cover fashion.
Fashion curators set out not just to explain what inspires a designer to create a dress or a collection, but to captivate and entertain audiences. The innovative 'Inspiration Dior' exhibition held recently at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow looks at how inspiration nourishes the creative process, linking sources like photography, sculpture, painting and film to individual designs, displaying an outfit next to the work of art like a Cezanne or a Modigliani, that inspired it.
Some exhibitions, like 'Unravel: Knitwear in Fashion' at MoMu in Antwerp are designed thematically. So is 'Hats, An Anthology' by Stephen Jones, which will be opening at the Bard Graduate Centre in New York in September. The renowned London-based milliner explains the journey a design makes from inspiration to client. In the first exhibition ever focused on headgear he drew hats from his own collection, the Victoria & Albert Museum's archives (where the exhibition debuted in 2009) and other sources, to illustrate the journey from inspiration to creation, to salon and then the client. In Jones's case, clients have ranged from Mick Jagger and Italian Vogue's Anna Piaggi, to Ascot racegoers.
The Daphne Guinness exhibition, opening at New York's F.I.T. in September, endeavours to explain the client's viewpoint in the fashion process. Guinness is the world's reigning eccentric fashion icon. A sartorial leader, arty and aristocratic, the remarkable personal style of this heiress is showcased in a collection drawn from her personal, mostly haute couture wardrobe and that of her late friend Isabella Blow. It includes Chanel, John Galliano at Christian Dior, Valentino and Alexander McQueen. Co-curated by the fashion historian Valerie Steele, who Guinness describes as one of those people 'who gives the right distance and context to the world of fashion', the exhibition will look at Guinness' dressing habits and show how she is drawn to fashion as an art and not as a status symbol.
Alternatively, exhibitions may consider a period in time such as the 'Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion' at the Haus der Kunst in Munich until mid-June, which was curated by the Kyoto Costume Institute, and looks at the impact of Japanese designers on fashion since the 1980s.
Such is the widespread variety of exhibitions; this schedule could have your zigzagging the globe for the next six months.
Got it coverd
MUNICH Germany : Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion, Haus der Kunst (hausderkunst.de). Til June 19
LONDON United Kingdom : Yohji Yamamoto, the Victoria & Albert Museum(vam.ac.uk). Til July 10
PARIS France : Madame Gres: Couture at Work, Mus?e Bourdelle (bourdelle.paris.fr). Til July 24
PARIS France : Hussein Chalayan, Mus?e des Arts Decoratifs (lesartsdecoratifs.fr). July 7-November 13
MOSCOW Russia : Inspiration Dior, Pushkin Museum. Til July 24.
NEW YORK United States : Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty (pictured), Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute (metmuseum.org). Til July 31
MONTREAL Canada : The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (mbam.qc.ca). Til October 2
BEIJING China : Louis Vuitton - Voyages, National Museum of China. Til August 30
ANTWERP Belgium : Unravel: Knitwear in Fashion, MoMu Mode Museum (momu.be). Til August 14
FLORENCE Italy : Salvatore Ferragamo Museum (museoferragamo.com). All year
ANTWERP Belgium : Walter Van Bierendonck, MoMu Mode Museum (momu.be). August 14-February 19
NEW YORK United States : Daphne Guinness, The Museum at F.I.T. (fitnyc.edu). September 14-January 7
NEW YORK United States : Hats, An Anthology by Stephen Jones, Bard Graduate Centre (bgc.bard.edu). Sept 15-April 15
