An extensive new fashion exhibition dedicated to workwear has opened at the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam featuring several rare garments from the Westminster Menswear Archive.
The Workwear exhibition pays tribute to functional fashion, which was originally designed as protection and support for labourers while performing heavy tasks, but has now become a potent working-class symbol, with prominent presence on the streets and catwalks.
Talking about the collection, Professor Andrew Groves, Director of the Westminster Menswear Archive, said: “The Westminster Menswear Archive's non-hierarchical collecting policy means we have an extensive range of workwear in our collection as well as designer versions that have been inspired by those creations.”
“For example, the exhibition includes an extremely rare jacket created in 2000 by the Italian sportswear brand C.P. Company known as the beekeeper, which was inspired by studying the actual suits worn by beekeepers. We were able to loan this as well as one of our modern beekeeper suits used by aviarists to the exhibition.”
The exhibition also includes a Japanese Sashiko fireman's coat, a 19th century British workwear smock, a French chainmail apron, a pair of British Police CBRN overboots, and an American firefighters proximity suit from the Westminster Menswear Archive, which was originally shown in the Invisible Men exhibition co-curated by Andrew Groves and Danielle Sprecher at Ambika P3 in 2019.
Professor Groves explained: “That particular fireman’s suit has become an iconic garment that represents the dialogue between functional utilitarian workwear and the designer iterations produced by companies such as Stone Island.”
Reflecting on the exhibition, Aric Chen, General and Artistic Director of Nieuwe Instituut, said: “We are pleased to present this exhibition that shows how functional design has helped shape the social and cultural dimensions of fashion and, in following, our societies and cultures themselves. Workwear brings up questions around class, labour, solidarity, and equality—while also revealing the beauty, ingenuity and creativity to be found in the utilitarian.”
The exhibition was curated by Eldina Begic, and along with garments from the Westminster Menswear Archive, it also features items from the Massimo Osti Archive in Bologna, such as the Stone Island Zeltbahn cape and prototypes for the hoods of the Milia Miglia jacket and the ICD range designed by Massimo Osti.
Visit the Workwear exhibition in Rotterdam until 9 September 2023, and learn more about the Westminster Menswear Archive at the University of Westminster.
Related articles
