Off the rack and into the museum

You can’t buy a dress worn by Grace Kelly or the Ballet Russe off-the-rack. But you can see Collette Dinnigan in stores, so what gives a designer fashion museum status?

3 Sep 2015

Gina Fairley

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Visual Arts

Rotating mannequins add to the energy of the fashion industry in Collette Dinnigan’s career survey at Powerhouse Museum (MAAS); Photo ArtsHub.

Fashion has become the successful museum model for extending audiences.

For the National Gallery of Victoria, The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier reported more than 226,000 visitors over four months, their most successful summer contemporary exhibition on record.

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina