Blog. Costume drama.

It has been just over six months since the Gallery of Costume re-opened after a £1.3m makeover. Sarah-Clare Conlon gives her verdict

Despite its size and setting, Platt Hall – home to the revamped Gallery of Costume – sits wallflower-demure between Rusholme and Fallowfield. Its prim outward appearance contrasts sharply with the sometimes showy exhibits that can be found on its first two floors, and it coyly keeps under wraps its status as the second most important costume collection in Britain after London’s V&A.

I went round perhaps the wrong way, going from the present day to the 1700s, so my first glimpses were extravagant outfits by the likes of local boy Matthew Williamson and the late Alexander McQueen. As I travelled back in time, the familiar 2000s and 1990s (perhaps too close to appreciate, and including a nod to the current slightly crass trend for tie-ins between high fashion and high street) gave way to the shoulder pad-obsessed 80s; Chanel’s trademark bouclé power suit and some brash sparkly numbers draped oddly on shoeless mannequins.

By the 70s and 60s, the models were cramped together in one case, unfortunately leaving a Space Age burnt-orange Mary Quant dress obscured at the back. Another strange curatorial choice was putting the now-famous fuchsia Audrey Hepburn acquisition in a seemingly tacked-on lecture room in the west wing, along with some cabinets full of buttons; a koumpounophobist’s nightmare.

Through the corridor, past cases and cupboards stuffed with some gorgeously detailed accessories (shoes, bags and – most attractive to a millinery lover like myself – hats), is the early 20^th Century. Here there are some fabulous flapper-style frocks and samples of Christian Dior’s post-war zeitgeist New Look, plus an informative display featuring fashion magazines through the decades. As in previous sections, the information panels here are in-depth and interesting, explaining historical, cultural and even artistic events and inspirations that shaped the styles (mainly women’s, it has to be said) of the various times.

Upstairs, the 18^th and 19^th centuries are covered, and it’s here that the gallery is given a sense of geographical context – in other words, the world-dominating role of Manchester in progressing textile manufacture and the local origin of seismic inventions such as Arkwright’s Water Frame of 1769, which helped develop the global, mass-produced clothes industry we know and love today.

Also on this floor is a prickly but perfectly poised sculpture by Manchester-based artist Susie MacMurray; a side room describing, in a fairly tongue-in-cheek manner, ‘The Perfect Lady’; and a chance to enjoy the Georgian building’s lovely plasterwork, picture windows and posh double staircase, complete with more fantastical fabric installations and conceptual headwear designs by local students.

The hall itself is given a frame of reference in an exhibition (disappointingly, only temporary) on ground level about the family who lived here for 300 years and the development of the Platt Fields Park, celebrating its centenary in 2010. Tying the leisure activities of the surrounding green space back to the gallery’s costume remit are examples of bathing suits and tennis outfits of the era, an unexpected but well-executed way to come full circle.

The Gallery of Costume is open Wednesday-Saturday 1.30-4.30pm. Sarah-Clare Conlon is a freelance writer and editor. Her blog, Words & Fixtures, is about language, literature, arts and culture, and won Best New Blog in the 2009 Manchester Blog Awards. Images (top to bottom): gallery interior; Mary Quant outfit of 1963-4; Dress of the middle 1890s; Rhodes dress, 1974; gallery interior.

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