The NGV has an interesting exhibition coming up next month – a subject close to my heart, investigating historical fashion through the clues they contain. From their website:
Fashion Detective takes a selection of miscellaneous garments and accessories as the starting point for a series of investigations. Using material evidence and commissioned fictions as alternate interpretative strategies, the exhibition is an encounter with the art of detection.
From fakes and forgeries to poisonous dyes, concealed clues and mysterious marks to missing persons, Fashion Detective offers a number of cases for close examination. Each suggests a specific path of analysis that encourages us to think differently about what we see and what we know.
Scrutinising fragments of information, Fashion Detective also puts some of Australia’s best crime writers on the case. Speculating on the evidence at hand, a series of new short fictions based around the works on display will introduce plots, characters and narrative to the exhibition in order to reveal fashion’s countless contexts.
Featuring approximately 60 garments and accessories Fashion Detective juxtaposes the testimony of curators, conservators and writers, and acknowledges the interdependence of story and object as well as the public fascination with the social life of clothes.
What: Fashion Detective exhibition
When: 9th May to 31st August. 10am to 5pm every day – closed Tuesdays.
Where: Where: National Gallery of Victoria, St Kilda Road Melbourne.
Cost: free
More information See the official site.
THis sounds tres interessante, Nicole. It’s probably a bit obvious, I know, but I do hope that they have one of those spy compass buttons that the lucky few were issued with during WW11. Super cool and just a little bit Maxwell Smart. You always find something fascinating to share. Thanks! Rachel