Manchester Art Gallery
Vogue 100: A Century of Style
24 June – 30 October 2016
Free Entry
The Second Age of Beauty is Glamour by Cecil Beaton, 1946
Direct from the National Portrait Gallery in London, Manchester Art Gallery presents Vogue 100: A Century of Style (24 June – 30 October 2016) to celebrate 100 years of cutting-edge fashion and portrait photography by British Vogue. The exhibition showcases 280 modern and vintage prints from the Condé Nast archive and international collections, brought together to tell the story of the fashion magazine. The exhibition at Manchester Art Gallery also includes a special library display of 101 Vogue magazines, one per year of the magazine’s history, and two of Josh Olins’ new photographic portraits of HRH The Duchess of Cambridge published in the centenary issue of Vogue.
Vogue 100: A Century of Style presents the remarkable range of photography commissioned by British Vogue since it was founded in 1916. Rarely seen images by many world-class photographers including Cecil Beaton, Lee Miller and Irving Penn are displayed alongside more recent work by celebrated artists such as David Bailey, Corinne Day, Patrick Demarchelier, Nick Knight, Herb Ritts, Mario Testino, Tim Walker and Jeurgen Teller. The exhibition includes many of the faces that have shaped the cultural landscape of the last ten decades, from Henri Matisse to Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and Damien Hirst, Marlene Dietrich to Gwyneth Paltrow, Lady Diana Cooper to Lady Diana Spencer, and Fred Astaire to David Beckham. Also featured in the exhibition is the fashion designers that defined the look of the century, including Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Alexander McQueen.
Highlights of the exhibition include prints from Corinne Day’s controversial Kate Moss underwear shoot, taken in 1993 at the height of ‘grunge’; Peter Lindbergh’s famous 1990 cover shot that defined the supermodel era; a series of exceptional Second World War photographs by Vogue’s official war correspondent, Lee Miller; a rare version of Horst’s famous ‘corset’ photograph from 1939, which inspired the video for Madonna’s hit song Vogue; and vintage prints by the first professional fashion photographer, Baron de Meyer.
Limelight Nights by Helmut Newton, 1973
Vogue 100: A Century of Style is part of a season focussing on fashion at Manchester Art Gallery. It coincides with Fashion & Freedom, in which leading fashion designers, including Vivienne Westwood and Roksanda, and film makers, including Nick Knight’s award winning SHOWstudio, have created new works that explore the impact that the First World War had on the changing role of women and fashion.
Manchester City Galleries’ (Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall and Manchester Art Gallery) costume collection is one of the most important in the UK. With thanks to a substantial grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (Collecting Cultures), the Galleries now have a new focus on collecting high-end fashion, acquiring the couture that has defined the decades. The newly purchased outfits by Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin, Christian Lacroix, Ossie Clark and Comme des Garcons join the Galleries’ collection of outstanding pieces ranging from 17th century to the present day. For the Vogue 100 exhibition, Manchester Art Gallery presents one of their newest acquisitions, a rare and dramatic Schiaparelli ensemble. A model of this costume was chosen by Wallis Simpson (Duchess of Windsor) in 1937 as part of her wedding trousseau and she was photographed wearing it the day before her marriage to the Duke of Windsor in May that year. The outfit is shown alongside a Cecil Beaton studio photograph of the Duchess that was published in Vogue.
Vogue 100: A Century of Style has been organised by the National Portrait Gallery in collaboration with British Vogue as part of the magazine’s centenary celebrations.
