This has been an exciting week in the studio with Dress detective Ingrid Mida coming to visit from Toronto. The aim was for Ingrid to examine the work I'd been making in response to my visit to the Ryerson Fashion Research Collection in Toronto earlier in the year. This was a great opportunity to share ideas, tests and spend time critiquing the work on the Exquisite Corpses project together. As part of the visit we spent a day at Brantwood examining John Ruskin's clothing as part of the Ruskin's Good Looking project. It was exciting to see the reds detective at work, spotting small clues to the history of the use of the garments. A highlight was unfolding a dress shirt to discover a small embroidered monogram JR95.
Her visit was part of a project in 2017-18 supported by an Artist International Development Fund grant from Arts Council UK and the British Council. Following the visit we will be writing a series of blog posts for the British Council webpage. Watch this space!