April 2018 - January 2019
Curated by Edwina Ehrman
“Exploring the complex relationship between fashion and nature from 1600 to the present day”
Rather than simply displaying fashionable dresses and clothing, this exhibition also showed natural history specimens, taxidermy and unprocessed plant and animal fibres, allowing viewers to question fashion materials and the sources of their clothes.
The exhibition delves into centuries of fashion that have taken inspiration, as well as embezzle from the natural world. It also includes present day innovators and designers who are explicitly highlighting the problems caused by the fashion industry. Certain trends across the fashion world have caused harmful and damaging results on the natural world, with the desire for ivory and exotic feathers only naming one. With the modern day extreme consumerism and fast fashion being normalised, this exhibition makes the audience reflect on the effects of land clearance, insecticides, and water consumption. Understandably, no fashion choice can be made without causing an impact, however the role as a consumer shouldn’t be overlooked.
Some of the items displayed in the exhibition include a pair of earrings from 1875 that were formed from the heads of two real Honeycreeper birds, as well as a dress from 1860 that was embossed with more than 5000 pearlescent wings gathered from live jewel beetles. In comparison, on the first floor of the exhibition the dress that Emma Watson beautifully wore to the Met Gala in 2016 is presented. Designed with sustainability in mind, every part of the dress was made from recycled materials; such as post-consumer plastic bottles.
The sound of the exhibition started off with birdsongs and the sound of animals in their natural habitat, but is soon interrupted by the noise of mans destructive impact on the natural world made apparent with the commotion caused by machinery and machetes cutting down trees.
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