While strolling through the beautiful gardens of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton I also managed to discover the small fashion section at the Brighton Museum and Art Gallery.
See my favourite discoveries below –
Hermin camiknickers worn by Lady Holmon, 1940 and Bathing costume worn by Yetta Salaver, 1920
Alexander McQueen silk dress, 2001. The clips on the shoulders are influenced by men’s clothes. The print is based on an Indian cone motif.
Schiaparelli dress, London 1936. This dress combines Schiaparelli’s love of fashion and art, its print paying tribute to the work of Impressionist painter Edgar Degas.
Azzedine Alaïa dress, Italy 1985-89. Dubbed the ‘King of Cling’ in 1981, his clothes hug the body in all the right places. (Sidenote: A piece on Alaïa and where he started from will be up on the blog soon!)
Issey Miyake two-piece
The adjacent room had an artistic installation by Yinka Shonibare MBE, called The British Library. It addresses immigration issues, and the impact immigration has had on different aspects of the British culture, considering cultural identity, area and space.
Situated in the Museum’s Old Reference Library are the names of the people who as immigrants, have made special contributions to the British culture.
The colourful books created with Shonibare’s trademark wax cloth, feature the names on their spines in gold embossed letters, people such as T.S. Eliot, Henry James, Hans Holbein, Kazuo Ishiguro, Zaha Hadid, Mick Jagger, Darcey Bussell and others.
The British Library asks us to evaluate our attitudes to immigration and immigrants.
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Photo credit: personal
xo Fani
