This year, we’re opening a brand new Fashion and Style gallery here at the Museum. Our Art and Design curators have been working hard to collect the brightest and best from fashion history; it’s going to be one of the biggest showcases of style in the UK.
One of the stories we’ll weave will be the visionary career of textile designer Bernat Klein. Over the course of four decades from the 1950s, Klein put Scottish fashion on the map and was renowned for his use of colour and texture. They were at the heart of his work, inspired by Pointillist oil paintings and the natural surroundings of his Scottish Borders studio. You can see it so plainly in the beautiful swatches, patterns and designs we’ll be displaying from this summer.
Klein’s radical use of colour blending and texture transformed haute couture and home-made fashion alike. This transformation of everyday fashion is something we’re keen to recognise in our new Fashion and Style gallery. We would love to speak to homespun fashionistas who used his patterns and fabrics, to learn what it was really like to wear a Bernat Klein original.
So if you or anyone you know might want to share their story and pictures with us, please do get in touch with us on webmaster@nms.ac.uk. Who knows? Perhaps a future in fashion awaits!