Wednesday 15 March 2017

Sartorial Style / Saturday 18 March, Victoria & Albert



Sartorial Style
Saturday 18 March, 11.00 – 16.30

Programme:
10.30 Registration
11.00 Welcome, Matilda Pye, Learning Academy, V & A
11.05 Real men DO wear pink! Masculine fashion before 1800
Susan North, Curator 17th & 18th Century Fashion V&A
11.50 Samurai rogues and merchant dandies: men’s fashion in Japan
Anna Jackson, Keeper Asian Department V&A
12.25 Sir Roy Strong CH, Constructing identity through clothing
Ben Whyman, Manager of the Research Centre for Fashion Curation, UAL
13.00 Lunch Break
14.00 Mark Powell in conversation with Paul Gorman
14.45 Refreshments
15.10 The Story Of The Face
Paul Gorman, Journalist and Author
15.40 North: Identity, Photography, Fashion
Adam Murray, Academic, Photographer and Curator
16.30 End
The programme is subject to change without warning

Speakers Biographies
Dr Susan North is Curator of Fashion, 1550-1800 at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Anna Jackson is Keeper of the Asian Department at the Victoria and Albert Museum. She has
particular responsibility for the Museum’s collection of Japanese textiles and dress and has
published widely on the subject. Another research interest is the cultural relationship between
East Asia and the West and in 2004 she was the co-curator of the exhibition Encounters: the
meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800. More recently she has published on the history of
international exhibitions and was the curator of Maharaja: the splendour of India’s royal
courts, a major exhibition staged at the V&A in 2009 which subsequently toured to Germany,
North America and Beijing. She published Kimono: The Art and Evolution of Japanese Fashion in
autumn 2015, and is a core participant in the AHRC-funded Fashion and Translation research
project.

Ben Whyman is manager of the Research Centre for Fashion Curation based at the University
of the Arts London, where he project manages and researches for exhibitions, publications and
events on museology and fashion curation. He has presented his research at conferences, and
has had work published, including a chapter on couturier Hardy Amies for London Couture:
British Luxury 1923-1975 (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2015), appendixes for The House of
Worth: portrait of an archive (Victoria and Albert Museum, 2014) and the Archivist magazine
(2015). Ben is currently undertaking a part-time PhD (2012-2018) on material culture, menswear
and life-writing. His research critically evaluates three personal menswear collections housed
in the V&A Museum and the Fashion Museum, Bath, evaluating if and how a collection of
artefacts of dress (including prosaic items such as shirts, belts, shoes) can augment an
understanding of character and amplify the life stories of the men who wore them. It explores
life-writing and biography, material culture, the power of memory and the act of
remembering.

Mark Powell was established in 1985 and is now one of London’s most influential bespoke
tailors and a one-off in the world of international haute couture. He’s a man who has
maintained an independent, unique vision for more than three decades, a sartorial vision that
remains focused on the marriage of street style and flare to the traditions of Savile Row. His is
a high style and, to borrow a quote from American man of letters Gay Talese, Powell is an
“artist with a needle and thread”. It’s the sharp end of menswear, realised with old world
panache.
Powell’s continues to be sought by an amazing client list from the worlds of film, television,
music and sport, including George Clooney, Harrison Ford, Mick and Bianca Jagger, David
Bowie, George Michael, Bryan Ferry, Naomi Campbell, Tom Jones, Jonathan Ross, Vic Reeves,
Usher, Frank Lampard, Goldie, Morrissey, Kevin Rowland, Keith Flint from The Prodigy, The
Killers, film director Joe Wright, Keira Knightley, Phil Daniels, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Sean Bean
and, more recently, Sir Bradley Wiggins, Martin Freeman and Paul Weller.

Paul Gorman is a blogger, writer and commentator on visual culture. His books include
Straight with Boy George and The Look: Adventures in Rock & Pop Fashion. His book The Story
Of The Face is published by Thames & Hudson this autumn and he is currently working on the
biography of the late cultural iconoclast Malcolm McLaren. See Paul Gorman's
blog: www.paulgormanis.com

Adam Murray is an academic, photographer and curator based in Manchester and co-founder
of photography collective Preston is my Paris. His practice and research is rooted in
photography, fashion and visual culture with particular emphasis on the regional identity of
Northern England. His most recent project is North: Identity, Photography, Fashion co-curated
with Lou Stoppard in collaboration with SHOWstudio and Open Eye Gallery. North: Identity,
Photography, Fashion explores the way the region is depicted, constructed and celebrated in
select photographs, artworks and fashion collections. The show brings together collective
visions of the North, unpicking the tropes and themes that appear regularly in design and

media and takes into account the rich cultural history of the region.  

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