Pick of the Bunch

Exhibition at the Fashion Museum, Bath 17 July - 27 August 2007.

‘Pick of the Bunch: the floral printed dress in the 20th Century’, is a collaborative project between the School of Art and Design at Bath Spa University and the Fashion Museum, Bath. The product was initialised in 2004 and incorporates an exhibition, book, website and academic papers.

The premise underlying the ‘Pick of the Bunch’ project was primarily to initiate a dialogue between fashion and textile design, focusing on floral printed dresses. The fusion between textile and fashion design in respect of object analysis had hitherto been marginalised within academic discourse, maintaining a separation between fashion and textile design in terms of discipline and critical dialogue. This distance, it appeared, needed to be bridged, and although the significance of textile design in the formation of fashionable garments and styles had been addressed, fashion was frequently privileged above textile design. The aim of the project was therefore to attempt to level the playing field and address both fashion and textiles as a unified whole.