Past exhibitions
Susie MacMurray
From 10 January 2012
Constructed from black nappa leather and around 100,000 long silver adamantine pins, Widow is the fourth in a series of garment-type female form sculptures by acclaimed Manchester artist, Susie MacMurray.
Yves Saint Laurent: Designer in focus
14 Sept – 31 Dec 11
An exhibition looking at the most influential French fashion designer of the 1960s and 70s, Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008). Featuring 14 iconic outfits including examples of the Trapeze line, Mondrian look and Russian collection.
Yves Saint Laurent was a dominant force in French fashion from his appointment at House of Dior, following Christian Dior’s death in 1957. His influence on fashion was overwhelming throughout the 1960s and 70s. As Caroline Rennolds Milbank wrote in 1985 when he was at the height of his popularity;
"The most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years, Yves Saint Laurent can be credited with both spurring the couture's rise from its sixties ashes and with finally rendering ready-to-wear reputable."
Saint Laurent introduced the tuxedo trouser suit for women and the safari look for both sexes. He became the first designer to use ethnic models in his runway shows, and referenced other non-European cultures in his work, specifically in his iconic African and Chinese collections. He was also deeply committed to fine art, producing collections inspired by the painters Picasso and Mondrian.
Running from 14 Sept – 31 Dec 2011, this temporary exhibition showed 14 influential outfits, dating from 1958 to 2011.
The Paper Dress and Elvis is my Mum. Abi Lake
27 June 2011 to 31 Dec 2011
Abi Lake is a Manchester based artist. Her work combines traditional dressmaking skills with contemporary performance practice to create sculptural garments.
‘Both these pieces are informed by an interest in the history and performativity of women’s dress – how we create environments and identities through what we wear and how we wear it.’
The Paper Dress 2003
‘A hand stitched and ever-growing garment, layered with leaves & stained with memory. Memories can disappear or disintegrate within seconds, days, years, or stay with us to the grave. We carry them. We wear them.’
Elvis is my Mum 2009
‘An exploration of notions of ‘family’, in all its many layers, colours and guises. The ribbons from the corset form a fluid rainbow of branches, connecting to different family members. The piece represents a family tree, which in performance serves as both costume and scenography.’
The Final Piece of the Jigsaw, Adnan Bayyat
Until 31 Dec 2011
Adnan Bayyat is a young Manchester designer with his own studio in the Triangle shopping centre.
He creates dresses as sculptured commissions, often from unusual materials. This dress is made of thousands of individual pieces from jigsaws found in Salford markets, with over 5,000 shoe laces, and it took over a year to make.
www.adnanbayyat.com
Joyce Ridings, a retrospective
11 May–3 September 2011
Joyce Ridings has designed in the fashion industry since graduating from Manchester Polytechnic in the late 1960s, and with her label, Qui, and her iconic shop, she regularly produces strikingly imaginative collections. This show presents a flavour of her 40 years of creative but eminently wearable designs.
For more information and a short biography of Joyce Ridings, please download the press pack.
Light Humour: Penelope Batley
From 18 September 2010
Penelope Batley graduated with a Design BA from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2007 and then won the Terence Conran Design Award on graduatingfrom the Royal College of Art in 2009.
Creating her giant escapist illuminated jewellery as playful public art commissions, she has recently made the entrance installation for London Jewellery Week.
Tailor, Singer, Striker, Dandy: New work by Lubaina Himid
12 January–30 April 2011
Lubaina Himid’s work often investigates issues of black identity. In this exhibition at the Gallery of Costume, she has selected from the large West African textile collection at in the gallery’s stores and reinterpreted the materials to express contemporary and historic male identity through appearance and clothes.
Through the creation of five life-sized images of black men, the artist asks the questions: “Who do you want to be? Who is it possible to be? Can what you wear help you be who you want to be?”
The display consists of four themes, which Lubaina Himid describes in more detail:
Tailor
This is the person who knows how to make the best of the human figure or to reveal a good one, to give elegance of line and to permit movement without disturbance to the actual look, style and fit of the costume. For me, the Tailor is like an architect for the body; how our clothes feel on the inside is as important as how they look on the outside. How we feel on the inside is what makes us act in a particular way in the world.
Striker
This is the person who goes for goal, the one who takes the risks, the one with responsibility for winning the match, winning the cup and winning the battle for survival. The Striker is the warrior, the leader, the fighter, the person who makes quick and precise decisions flamboyantly and with exceptional bravado.
Singer
This is the person who writes the poetry and songs, tells the stories, remembers the histories, makes sure that the truth is told; passed down from the elders to the young and then written down. Sometimes the Singer imitates the sounds of nature, the birds, the water, the rush of the wind and the dash of the rain in order to make sure the tale is told.
Dandy
This is the person who is not afraid to be seen as elegant and bold, charming, eloquent and strategic. The Dandy understands how everything is structured and designed and is always aware of how everything looks.
Lubaina Himid is Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire and has been exhibiting internationally in Europe and the U.S.A. for the past 30 years. Her work is represented in several private and public collections including Tate, the V&A, The Arts Council, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery and the Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston. She was awarded an MBE in 2010 and is currently a Finalist in the 2011 Northern Art Prize.
The exhibition is part of London 2012 Cultural Olympiad programme Stories of the World.
Spinning A Yarn
Until April 2011
The production and consumption of cotton is woven into the fabric of Manchester and Lancashire’s built environment. Cotton mills, factories and textile warehouses once dominated the landscape. After the Second World War, however, the cotton industry in North West England declined and in recent years former mill buildings and textile warehouses that escaped demolition have become upmarket homes. The layered identities of these places are the starting point for Spinning A Yarn.
Spinning A Yarn is an intervention by Tea (artists Peter Hatton, Val Murray and Lynn Pilling) in three Manchester buildings associated with cotton: Royal Mills, once a cotton spinning mill, has been converted into apartments; Platt Hall is a Georgian mansion that was once the home of a wealthy textile merchant but is now a museum of costume; and the Whitworth Art Gallery houses textile collections that include cotton from all over the world.
