Manchester Art Gallery’s new fashion gallery opens next month

Manchester’s new Fashion Gallery begins life with a major exhibition on British menswear next month, celebrating 250 years of men’s style through fashion, painting and photography.

Dandy Style draws contrasts and comparisons between the three mediums, blending the historic with the
contemporary, the provocative with the respectable, considering key themes in the development of male style, image and identity.

The exhibition will feature a wide selection from Manchester Art Gallery’s outstanding menswear and portraiture collections, and, somewhat unusually, will present fashion and fine art as equal participants.

Dandy Style will showcase approximately 75 outfits and a similar number of portraits and photographs that show immaculate tailoring, sumptuous fabrics, ornate decoration and subcultural styles in rarely seen menswear.

The show looks at the ‘development of the fashionable British man’, exploring elegance, uniformity and spectacle, from the 18th century to the present day. Its two sections – Tailored Dandy and Decorated Dandy – open with imposing imaginary portraits, Tailor and Dandy, by Turner Prize-winning international artist, Lubaina Himid.

Whilst most of the works will be from Manchester’s collection, offering a unique opportunity to show noteworthy pieces which have not before been on public display, the exhibition will also include loans of significant items from other art institutions and private lenders.

Other items include: Thomas Gainsborough’s full-length portrait of Sir Edward Turner in a dramatically-patterned suit, an early three-piece tartan suit from the 1820s mirrored by a Vivienne Westwood tartan suit from the 1990s and a contemporary photograph by Alice Mann of Eustache Seke wearing Westwood tartan.

A lilac woollen suit from the 1770s worn by Thomas Carill Worsley of Manchester shown with a lilac ‘Space Age’ suit by Pierre Cardin also features, as does a McQueen coat of 1998 with dramatic embroidery showing a pair of fighting cocks.

Dandy Style opens on Fri 7 Oct and will run through until May 2023. For more information, visit the Manchester Art Gallery website.