Gothic Styles Street / Fashion Show at Exchange Square
Sara Jaspan, Exhibitions Editor
Perhaps catwalks are as much about an expression of pride and identity, as looks? Just months after MIF 2017 opened with What Is the City but the People? featuring a 100m runway for the people of Manchester; the closing event of Gothic Manchester Festival 2017 will see some of the city’s best dressed goths and steampunks parade through Exchange Square. (Steampunk, for the less informed, is a kind of synthesis of modern styles with Victorian influence; think bustles, corsets, spats and military-inspired garments).
The show is set to be an outright celebration of gothic fashion in all its forms, exploring what it means to embrace the darkened garb as part of one’s identity, and how the style has influenced other areas of contemporary clothing design (check out Stephanie Reid’s talk on wound-accessories and power dressing during the festival conference for more on this). After all, in a city with more than a touch of the gothic running through its veins (not least reflected in the pointed arches and ribbed vaults of Manchester’s civic buildings, and the year-round programme of activities led by the Centre for Gothic Studies at MMU), it seems only right that the culture’s street fashion should also be celebrated. Indeed, what is the city but the people?
Held in association with the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, and also featuring a series of new style creations by Manchester Fashion Institute students and alumni.
