Garden
Judith Clark Costume Gallery
29 April - 5 June 1999

Garden looked at fashion's continued love affair with the garden and in particular its precious blooms. Rich and sensual, flowers are not only used as surface decoration on gowns but as their essential metaphor. Both historical and contemporary pieces were shown, and flowers, both imaginary and quasi-scientifically represented: from early 18th century kitchen garden embroidered aprons, to a 1950's prom dress. Showing its relevance today, current pieces included those by Matthew Williamson, Sybilla, Prada, Moschino, Alexander McQueen and the exciting young designer Arkadius (who showed a piece directly inspired by the orchids he saw at the 1998 Chelsea Flower Show).

Avoiding a strict and comprehensive chronology, the exhibition became a three-dimensional sketchbook to mimic Anna Piaggi's Doppie Pagine themed pages for Italian Vogue.

On sale in the gallery's bookshop were various books that reflected the theme of the garden, such as fashion photographer Nick Knight's Flora, artist Anya Gallaccio's Chasing Rainbows and the visually stunning new magazines Bloom and Pure.

The growing and arranging of flowers has always been the practise of women in history, the beauty of the floral and the feminine united and mutually reflected: the flower as decoration lends the wearer an aura of femininity and purity and has thus endured as a stylistic device. In her 1954 autobiography, Elsa Schiaparelli describes "the six year-old Elsa, convinced she is ugly and wishing to become beautiful, plants seeds in her throat, mouth and ears in the hope that they will grow into a garden". This need to achieve desirability and acceptance is a deep-rooted female instinct, and here the garden becomes a symbol of transformation. Richard Martin, curator of the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum, New York, suggests that "lush and sensual, the flowers of grand dresses are not merely their surface decoration but their essential metaphor".

The seasonal changes in fashion themselves echo the garden's own ephemeral cycles. Couturiers have long held dear particular flowers as precious objects of desire and inspiration, from the delicate lily-of-the-valley captured in Christian Dior's classic 'Diorissimo' perfume to Lacroix's favourite clove-scented carnations, and the camellia that has become synonymous with the house of Chanel. This season however, even the staunchest advocates of utilitarian and avant-garde chic have found ways to incorporate floral themes into their collections. At Prada, laser-cut, appliqued daisies decorate the hem of an otherwise plain and functional nylon skirt; at McQueen, traditional rose-strewn tapestry becomes the theme and the structure of the most unexpectedly sexy dress of the year, its gauzy transparency and stiff silhouette derived from the open weave of the tapestry cloth itself.

An explicit suggestion of the female anatomy is offered by the talented young designer Arkadius in his Wild Orchid jacket. Its petalled front opens in erotic invitation, revealing fluidly painted red orchids and anthuriums on pale silk, delivering a double visual thrill. The innocent delight and perceived sentimentality associated with fresh-cut flowers are here dashed by the darker, brooding sensuality of the hot-house.

In the nineteenth century, designs incorporating vivid and lush vegetation were a sign of perennial life and vitality, even during the melancholy intervals of Victorian dress. The example shown in the exhibition, an English day-dress dating from the 1840's, typifies the quality of the needlework available at that time. Often this would be put to best effect when illustrating the simplest of flowers - just as Dior, a century later, would render bucolic themes with fine couture techniques, creating a paradox of innocence and sophistication. Here, the exquisitely embroidered garlands curl into a repeating pattern against the milk-white silk of the dress. A hundred years earlier, pattern swayed between naturalism and stylisation as new and exotic plants were brought to Europe from overseas. The kitchen aprons, dated 1740, feature abstracted designs, probably based on Chinese or Indian prototypes, that boast a range of stitches akin to a 'sampler' of the period.

garden is a celebration of fashion's endless impressions of nature, from the botanical reproductions of Matthew Williamson's hand-painted kimono jacket to the stylised fantasy of the graphic daisy sundress (created by Spanish designer Sybilla especially for the exhibition). By surrounding ourselves with flowers we feel the presence of living things and are reminded of our own natural context. Within the world of technological extremes, the beauty and unpredictability of nature provides a necessary foil, and thus the flower in fashion, as decoration, structure or metaphor, continues to delight and inspire.