The Fashion Museum is a bold new and innovative institution. It chooses to embrace the traditional name and to honour the important function of a museum which is to develop social knowledge and to encourage discussion about key aspects of our community and of our national identity. The Fashion Museum breaks with tradition however in its form, choosing to be more fashion’able’. That is, able to be dynamic and a museum trendsetter. It will be represented not by a grand building but rather by its research, by an on-line archive, by a website, a blog, in publications but most visibly in its exhibitions. Unconstrained by a physical collection, the Fashion Museum will be is responsive to contemporary questions and interests in what we wear. It is able to draw on the collections and knowledge available in the community both from within public institutions and from private individuals and collectors. It uses real time and real space presentations as well as virtual technology to address its subject matter.
The Fashion Museum does not need a specific building instead it will “pop up” in spaces appropriate to its exhibitions, hence Looking Terrific; the Story of El Jay was held at the Gus Fisher Gallery and will be at Kirkaldie and Stains from the 6th September to the 3rd October (Kirk’s being the Wellington stockist of El Jay). The Fashion Museum will become a brand recognised for its relevance and for the excitement of its ideas. It will be the premier umbrella for the recording, archiving and display of our New Zealand fashion heritage.