Fashion Curating Critical Practice in the Museum and Beyond

As the practice of fashion curation extends into commercial galleries, public and retail spaces, and even to the individual self, the professional concept of “curating” is understood less and less. Today, everyone is seemingly able to “curate”, but where does this leave the old-fashioned understanding of collection and display of clothing in the museum? This thought-provoking volume explores the practice of fashion curating in the 21st century within the wider frame of the arts, bridging the gap between methods of display and notions of “the curatorial” in fashion exhibitions, commercial settings and the virtual world.

From fashion's first foray into the museum with historically orientated displays of epoch and style, to creative collaborations between luxury fashion brands and artists, this book challenges understandings of fashion curation by drawing on the palpably new spaces, places and actors in today's curating scene. Exploring poetic and performative museum displays in venues such as the V&A, Somerset House, MoMu and the Royal Ontario Museum, alongside the ways that brands such as Dior, Chanel and Louis Vuitton have made use of “the curatorial” in their own commercial strategies, the book asks pressing questions about controversial funding and collaboration from the commercial fashion sector, and the limitations of producing exhibitions that are at the same time critical and popular.

Bringing together approaches from fashion curators, designers and world-renowned academics, curation is positioned as a critical practice that opens up new ways of conceptualizing and theorizing fashion, challenging how we think and what we already know.

Annamari Vänskä is Adjunct Professor of Fashion at the University of Turku, Finland. She is also Adjunct Professor of Art History and Gender Studies at the University of Helsinki, Finland where she was named Adjunct Professor of the Year 2012.

Hazel Clark is Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, and Research Chair of Fashion at Parsons School of Design, New York, USA. Her books include the co-edited Old Clothes, New Looks (Berg, 2005) and Design Studies: A Reader (Berg, 2009).

Introduction
Fashion Curating: From the Gallery to the Self…Spaces, Places and Actors
Annamari Vänskä, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Finland and Hazel Clark, Parsons School of Design, New York, USA

1. Research, Theorizing, Exhibit: Fashion Curation as Research Project
Simona Segre Reinach, Bologna University, Italy

2. Props and Other Captions
Judith Clark, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK

3. Staging Fashion at Somerset House, London
Alistair O'Neill, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK

4. Curating Fashion History at the Royal Ontario Museum
Alexandra Palmer, Royal Ontario Museum, Canada

5. Curating Fashion at MoMu: Past and Future
Kaat Debo, Antwerp Fashion Museum MoMu, Belgium

6. Curating Transformative Practices of Fashion
Robyn Healy, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia

7. Fashion Curates Art: On Takashi Murakami for Louis Vuitton and the Cocurata Project
Peter Bengtsen, Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences, Lund University, Sweden

8. Fashion Without Bodies? On the Curatorial in Fashion Exhibitions
Annamari Vänskä, Turku Institute for Advanced Studies, Finland

9. Beyond the Garment: Towards a Specificity of Fashion Curating
Marco Pecorari, Centre for Fashion Studies, Stockholm University, Sweden and Parsons Paris School of Art & Design, France

10. Authenticity Meets Commercialization: Curatorial Practices and Luxury Fashion Brands in China
Yuli Bai, Beijing Union University, China

11. This is not Fashion! Feminist Issues in Art and Fashion Curation
Nathalie Khan, Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK

12. Collecting and Exhibiting LGBT Fashion
Shaun Cole, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London, UK

Bibliography
Index

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