Clothes Encounters

What would you wear to meet a president, a princess or The King?

This exhibition features ten clothes encounters – stories exploring the clothing worn or created by a diverse range of Australians, from different eras and walks of life, in response to significant political, creative and social encounters in their lives.

Drawn from the Powerhouse Museum collection, this exhibition is a reminder that the fashion and dress choices we make reflect our aspirations and identity, and more broadly form part of a society’s cultural expression. Clothes can define a moment in time.

Fashion speaks about us, for us and to us. It communicates social changes and social cohesion: it is a system of representation which inhabits the world of dreams, ideas and aspirations yet simultaneously embodies the material nature of history.
Margaret Maynard, dress historian.