Go behind the scenes at the fashion show at V&A Dundee

V&A Dundee invites visitors to the new exhibition to go behind the scenes and into the world of fashion shows in the pre-digital era.

Fashion Show: Everything But Clothes is set to reveal the creative process behind the scenes of a traditional catwalk event.

Museum Scotland’s goal is to peel away the glamourous façade of the catwalk show and dive even deeper, providing access-all-area insight into everything behind what we see on the runway.

Curated by Iain R Webb, professor of fashion and design at Kingston School of Art, the show will feature vignettes from the front row of fashion shows to invitations and memorabilia and more.

Instead of featuring only the clothes being modeled on, the focus will be on the creative people behind the scenes, including illustrators, graphic designers, set designers, photographers and hairstylists.

Webb has enjoyed a career spanning four decades in the fashion industry and many of the pieces on display are from his personal archive, amassed over many years. Expect to see his sketchbook as well as show invitations and personal notes and memorabilia from designers such as Christian Lacroix, TrackDior, Vivien WestwoodVersace, Yves Saint Laurent and Helmut Lang.

Also on display are photographs of models, designers and celebrities rarely seen backstage at lavish fashion shows and fashion week parties, featuring the likes of Bjrk, Linda Evangelista, Grace Jones and the late Alexander McQueen.

V&A says the pieces dating from the 1980s to early 2000s are particularly important in the sociocultural context of the time they were made.

That period is relevant because it comes before the effects of the democratization of the internet including social media and fashion bloggers. Prior to the advent of the internet in its current all-encompassing form, international fashion shows and collection previews were primarily private, invitation-only events held behind closed doors.

Today, they tend to be shared directly on social media by attendees or even steamed directly by the design houses themselves.

Speaking ahead of the show’s launch, Webb explained how interesting and unusual the exhibition approach will be for visitors: While rooted in one individual perspective and experience, I hope the show will tell many different stories from many different creative collaborators around the designer. and takes visitors along the edge of the catwalk, giving them an unusual view of the fashion show.

Curator of V&A Dundee, Francesca Bibby, agreed, saying, This Exhibition is an opportunity to highlight the network of various creative disciplines in the fashion industry; makers, artists, illustrators and journalists who play an integral role in interpreting and communicating fashion designer concepts across various media.

Bibby added that this exhibition was packed full of objects, photos and illustrations; all of which we hope will spark the curiosity of visitors and provide a glimpse of the creativity and ingenuity that goes behind the scenes of fashion shows.

Fashion Show: Everything But Clothes runs through January 2024.