29 October 2014 - 26 April 2015
Design Museum
“A hugely intelligent, interesting exploration of a subject that could not be more relevant.” La Petite Anglaise
Today we see the evolution of a new power dress code - professional women are engaging with contemporary fashion as a way to express individuality, a sense of style and project empowerment. Women Fashion Power celebrated exceptional women working in the realms of art and design, economics and politics, media, fashion and music. The exhibition brought together exclusive interviews, an immersive multimedia journey and unique historic pieces of clothing to form the most wide-ranging presentation of modern fashion ever to be shown in the UK.
Women Fashion Power communicated how powerful women use fashion as an important tool of self-expression and empowerment to build reputation, attract attention and assert authority. Each of the contemporary women featured in the exhibition contributed an outfit for display as well as sharing their personal style philosophy. The women featured included HSH Princess Charlène of Monaco, Joan Burstein, Shami Chakrabarti, Wei Sun Christianson, Miriam González Durántez, Livia Firth, Diane von Furstenberg, Roksanda Ilincic, Natalie Massenet, Julia Peyton-Jones, Kirsty Wark, Dame Vivienne Westwood and Lady Gaga.
The exhibition also examined the last 150 years of women’s fashion with an immersive visual timeline which went from the restrictive boned corsets of the nineteenth century to the statement Louboutin heels of today. Alongside archive photography and film footage, pieces on display included a 1920s beaded ‘flapper’ dress, 1930s clothes and accessories owned by Elsa Schiaparelli, a 1941 handbag designed for carrying your gas mask in style, an original 1966 Yves Saint Laurent ‘Le Smoking’ suit, the blue Mansfield suit worn by Margaret Thatcher when she was elected leader of the Conservative party in 1975, a punk wedding dress from Zandra Rhodes’ 1977 ‘Conceptual Chic’ collection and the Jacques Azagury dress worn by Diana, Princess of Wales on the occasion of her 34th birthday.
The exhibition was designed by the world renowned architect Dame Zaha Hadid and was officially opened by Anne Hidalgo, mayor of Paris, who also featured in the exhibition.
