Fashion exhibitions have turned in the last two years or so into the proverbial goose that lays golden eggs for many museums all over the world.
Yet, while there are very important museums such as New York's Met focusing on major retrospectives and events, there are also smaller and less known institutions that are actually worth visiting because they do have some true gems in their collections.
One of them is the Fashion Museum in Bath, located in the grand Assembly Rooms. The latter, designed by John Wood The Younger and opened in 1771, were mainly used by the fashionable Georgian society for dancing, card playing and dining. In a nutshell, this is one of the "not to be missed" locations for any Jane Austen fan visiting the town (Austen attended many balls at the Upper Assembly Rooms).
I would warmly recommend to visit the museum to everybody with an interest in Regency, Victorian and Edwardian fashion, though the museum regularly organises various exhibitions about fashion and costume design.
Last summer it brought together a selection of award-winning and Oscar-nominated costumes from famous films, while at the moment the Fashion Museum galleries host an event entitled “What Will She Wear? The Enduring Romance of the Wedding Dress” (until 8th January 2012).
This exhibition is inspired by the 2011 Royal Wedding, but includes special displays celebrating the finest wedding dresses throughout the centuries, from the 1800s to our days.
There is something for every taste, from simple satin frocks to more romantic ones decorated with ruffles and frills, with elaborate lacework or with intricate beaded motifs (View this photo), with linear silhouettes finishing in a long train (View this photo) or with well-defined padded shoulders, a typical 1940s feature (View this photo).
It is actually a shame that the rather limited space of the museum and the not so glamorous dummies detract from this exhibition (and from the rest of the displays) as there are quite a few rare pieces here, such as a long crepe gown by Victor Stiebel (1934) and designs by John Bates (as Jean Varon, 1964), Zandra Rhodes (1980), Alberta Ferretti (2001) and Alexander McQueen (2010, sixth image in this post, wedding dress on the right).
The best thing about this exhibition is that it's not all yards of tulle and satin frocks, but it also includes 25 beautiful sepia photographs showing famous brides from the 1930s in dresses by the House of Worth.
Visitors looking for inspirations for their own wedding may find it in the images portraying the Contesse Mortemart in a simple yet striking gown, the Baronne the Rochefort in a lace wedding veil or Queen Farida of Egypt wearing a dress with a long train.
A remarkable and rare piece, a court dress from 1660 also known as the "Silver Tissue Dress", introduces the displays about the museum collections.
This is the oldest dress in the collection and it's a very important piece since very few complete dresses from the 17th century actually survive.
The name of the dress derives from the fact that its fabric is made with fine silk woven with silver metal thread and decorated with applied parchment lace, that is silk bobbin lace enclosing strips of parchment.
Since these materials were very expensive, the dress was supposed to be worn only at grand occasions, such as attendance at a royal court.
Fashion was considered in the 18th century one of the decorative arts and this is proved by the mid-1700s sack back dresses (that is dresses with broad pleats falling from the shoulders) in the next display in beautiful shades of pink, yellow and pale blue silk or brocade with silver metal thread embroideries (eleventh image in this post).
Visitors who want to have a rest at this point can try on a crinoline skirt or a corset and see what it felt like being caged in these rather impractical structures that shaped and sculpted a woman's body.
Those who want instead to continue exploring the museum should stop at the small display of gloves and gauntlets (on loan to the Fashion Museum from the Gloves Collections Trust, part of the Worshipful Company of Glovers of London) from the early 1600s, when James I was king, to the 1660s when his grandson Charles II was restored to the throne.
These doeskin gloves and gauntlets are actually among the rarest surviving historic accessories in any museum in the world.
These beautiful and elaborate accessories are very rare since different craftspeople were employed to make them, from leather dressers to glove makers and embroiderers who created the intricate designs showing human figures, flowers, birds sitting in ornate nests and animals with symbolic meanings.
The fingers in these gloves were given extra length to make sure they carried a strong message: they indeed indicated that the wearer wasn't doing any physical or pratical work.
The next exhibition space of the museum includes several displays with items from its historical collection divided in chronological installations.
There are dresses, shawls and stoles from the early 1800s, crinolines, crinolettes and petticoats from 1840-1860, parasols and umbrellas from 1870, coats and man's waistcoats in flamboyant colours and patterns from 1880 and shoes and boots from Mary Chamberlains' collection (1890).
Mary was the daughter of William Endicott, secretary of War under US President Grover Cleveland and married Birmingham politician Joseph Chamberlain in 1888.
Like many American ladies she used to buy her clothes and accessories in Paris and owned several pairs of shoes by various Parisian designers in the same style, but in a range of different colours.
One of the cabinets includes Queen Victoria's dress from 1890 decorated with black embroidered net with two panels of mourning crape on the bodice (View this photo).
At the time a widow would wear crape in the early stages of mourning and then gradually return to silks and velvets, reintroducing little by little other colours in her wardrobe, though Queen Victoria wore deep mourning for her husband Prince Albert for the rest of her life.
All the designs in this space are exhibited inside glass displays, surrounded by rows of boxes, to give the idea of an archive, a shop or a wardrobe.
The best section is the one featuring the Paquin Library, and the Worh archive with 30 volumes of photographs of dresses, coats and jackets.
The Paquin library is part of the collection of the Fashion Museum, a gift from the house when it closed down.
Visitors who are into contemporary fashion will probably enjoy more the displays that chronicle the changes in trends from the '40s on.
The section that follows looks not only at how fashion transformed and developed in the 1900s, but also at the changes in production thanks to innovative processes in clothing standardisation and to new fibres, such as rayon or nylon.
Two glass cabinets introduce different trends, with looks calling to mind Rosie the Riveter's to full circle rock'n'roll skirts, Biba shirt dresses, rainbow knits by Fiorucci and a blanket coat by Romeo Gigli (not sure how they managed to find it, but definitely worth including it into the collection - it's the burgundy coat in this image, the one on the right).
The revolution brought on by the little black dress is tackled via a display that includes various designs by Norman Hartnell, John Bates, Victor Edelstein, Balenciaga and Versace.
A display dedicated to Helmut Lang and featuring men and women's wear designs from the '90s on analyses instead utilitarian chic in contemporary fashion.
This particular display will continue until the end of the year, while, next to it, fans of John Bates will be able to admire a series of black and white images chronicling his life and career achievements.
Bates stated that the foundation of good design is balanced on proportion and quality of construction and the dresses in these images are perfect examples of his aesthetic principles.
The next exhibit, an edited display of the Fashion Museum's "Dress of the Year" collection (1963-2010), is instead a roll call of the most famous names in international fashion over the last half century.
The "Dress of the Year" scheme was originated by the museum founder, Doris Langley Moore, in 1963, and ensures that one dress from the current year is donated to the museum.
This section includes designs by Mary Quant (1963), Ossie Clark (1969), Jean Muir (1973) and Scott Crolla (1983) among the others.
Even visitors who may not be so much into fashion will be able to spot a Missoni dress (1974) with its unmistakeable colourful zig zag pattern, a slogan T-shirt by Katharine Hamnett (1984), a jacket by Armani (1986) and a woven cotton strapless checked dress worn over a dark coloured skirt with a matching coat from one of John Galliano's earliest collection (1987).
Among the most recent designs showcased there are a slashed top matched with red trousers from Alexander McQueen's S/S 1996 collection ("The Hunger") and a long-sleeved blue and green bamboo print silk chiffon evening dress by Versace (2000).
Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (2008) and Vivienne Westwood (2010) also make an appearance together with a Thom Browne suit (2005) with a tight fitting jacket and trousers finishing above the ankle.
Final displays with assorted hats, bags, and shoes and including rare pieces by Philip Treacy and Salvatore Ferragamo, and cabinets focusing on contemporary trends, await the visitor at the very end of this journey through fashion.
As stated at the beginning of this post, some of the displays just don't make justice to the museum collection. Indeed the Fashion Museum would benefit from some renovations, especially when it comes to the dummies and the way the various designs are exhibited. Yet we all know museums depend on the money they are assigned and, at the moment, many cultural institutions all over the world can not afford any renewal projects due to the lack of funds.
At least the collection at Bath's Fashion Museum (luckily) keeps on growing thanks to new acquisitions and to donations made by designers as part of the continuing "Dress of the Year" scheme.
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