Guided behind-the-scenes tour of the Ashes to Fashion exhibition led by its curator, Charlotte McReynolds.
Charlotte McReynolds is leading a curator talk at the Ulster Museum on Thursday 29 October, from 2.00pm to 2.45pm. It's a behind-the-scenes tour of the Ashes to Fashion exhibition, with McReynolds, the show's curator, taking you through the collection and the story that built it.
That story starts with a fire. On 11 November 1976, a blaze at Malone House in South Belfast destroyed about 10,000 items from the Ulster Museum's costume and textile collection. Among the losses were one of the world's finest collections of linen damask, a rare Elizabethan embroidered jacket, and an 18th-century dress. It was a huge blow to the museum's holdings, and for a long time, the gap it left was the defining feature of the collection.
Fifty years on, the collection has been rebuilt through acquisitions and donations, and it's now one of the most important in Western Europe. Ashes to Fashion puts that recovery on display. The fire's sole survivor, the 18th-century Lennox Quilt, hangs alongside new additions like the Lanto Synge Needlework Collection and pieces by Alexander McQueen, Carolina Herrera, JW Anderson and the late Paul Costelloe. Together they trace fashion from the eighteenth century right through to the present day.
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Because McReynolds is the curator, the tour works as a guided walk through the show rather than a formal talk. You'll see the Lennox Quilt and the newer acquisitions in person, and hear the story of how the collection came back from that 1976 fire. It runs from 2.00pm to 2.45pm on Thursday 29 October at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
