1920s Jazz Age: Fashion and Photographs

Stylish exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the clothes of the 1920s.

This was a beautifully designed exhibition, taking the idea of movies being a new phenomenon in this age and with the clothes in tableaux based around the scenes in a film and starting with the queue for a movie and a scene of movie makers. This was such a clever way of bringing similar types of outfits together and gave the show a good narrative.

The commentaries were good too pointing out trends such as for Egyptian motifs following the discovery of Tutankhamen’s Tomb and for fur as refugees emerged from the Russian Revolution and civil war. It also discussed social changes and how this affected clothes with women wearing shorter skirts as they were working more.

It was chocked full of wonderful flappers dresses both evening and day wear. I feel for a dress with Macintosh style beaded roses and for some lovely pastel organza dresses in a tableaux based on a picnic on a lake.

There were some nice related displays to go with the show such as costumes from the recent Great Gatsby movie, fashion illustrations by Gordon Conway and portraits of personalities of the time by James Abbe.

Closes on 15 January 2017

 

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