On Tuesday 13th September, OHS textiles GCSE and A Level students visited the Bath Fashion Museum to take part in a textiles workshop and undertake research for their individual projects.
They were greeted by staff who gave them a talk on the origins and contents of the museum, as well as the history of the Assembly rooms where the fashion collection is housed. Apparently, the room where we were based, used to be the cards and gambling room and still has its beautifully elaborate glass crystal chandeliers. During the workshop, the students first studied the costumes, picking out ruffles, gathers, and ruching in their sketches. They then interpreted these into fabric with the traditional hand-stitching technique of ‘Suffolk puffs’ for their sketchbooks.
After lunch, students sketched, took photographs, and made notes in the galleries, choosing outfits from the fashion collection that inspired them, from 16th century gloves to the section entitled ‘Dress of the Year’. The latter included Giambattista Valli’s pink tulle dress made famous by Kendal Jenner in 2019. They saw outfits of fashion designers from Mary Quant to Norman Hartnell and imagined what it would be like to design and wear them. There were even some ‘copies’ of the collection to try on!
Before returning home, we had a walk up to the nearby famous landmark streets of the Circus and the Crescent to admire the amazing Regency architecture of the city.
In all, a grand day out!
Here is what some of our students said about the visit:
‘The workshop was very useful and dressing up was a lot of fun’. (Year 11)
‘I found it very interesting learning about the development of fashion from centuries ago to more modern fashion’. (Year 11)
‘I loved the collection of dresses there. They were all stunning , and there was so much variety of different styles and colours’. (Year 11)
‘It was a lovely trip to Bath. It was fascinating to see the variety of outfits throughout many decades, and particularly the modern fashion that’s local fashion lovers had picked out to display’. (Year 13)
‘Such a fun day, especially the dressing up’. (Year 13)