Worn: the life within clothes

Worn showcases the breadth of Manchester City Galleries’ fashion and dress collection through a ‘slow fashion’ lens with a focus on the lifecycle of clothing. The exhibition highlights pieces that have been mended, altered, customised and recycled, revealing evidence of wear and examining the longevity, preservation and consumption of clothing and the notion of value through human connection, history, memory and storytelling.

Drawing on the strength and scope of the collection, the exhibition includes over 40 objects including fine art, textiles, fashion, and domestic, home-made everyday dress and accessories, spanning several centuries, from 18th century to our most recent contemporary acquisition. Many of the garments have been donated to the collection over 100-year period and are displayed for the first time, bringing to light patterns of gallery and museum collecting and ideas around preservation and representation.

Presented as a series of ‘material stories’ around paisley, cotton, silk and patchwork, the displays draw out some of the many global connections of textiles and dress linking to consumption, colonial trade and export, appropriation and re-use. Featuring clothing from the Make Do and Mend period of the 2nd World War, some of the exhibition highlights include utility and workwear and examples of customised, homemade clothing exploring resourceful, creative approaches to fashion and self-expression. The displays present clothing imbued with memories, narratives, stories of identity and physical impressions of wear that echo the passage of time.

Worn also reflects the breadth and scope of Manchester City Galleries dress collection, curated as a repository for histories and memories of past lives reflected though surviving clothing and viewed thought the lens of the present. Fashion is framed as a shifting and responsive medium, eminently accessible and connective.