With its recently unveiled Fashion and Textiles gallery and accompanying exhibit Fashionable in Asia, it is clear that Singapore’s Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) is committed to making pivotal and innovative strides in the space of regional fashion heritage. Its latest venture, however, breaks boundaries on a few more fronts.
Dubbed #SGFASHIONNOW, the exhibition is the museum’s first display of contemporary Singapore fashion and explores the topic of creative practice on our shores. Presented as a collaboration between Lasalle College of the Arts and the Textile and Fashion Federation, it also marks the first time an exhibition has been co-curated by fashion students. With five Lasalle College of the Arts students at the helm of the project, the exhibition sees a selection of pieces by Singaporean or Singaporean-based designers.
Shares director of ACM, Kennie Ting: “I hope #SGFASHIONNOW encourages new ways of thinking about the question “What is Singapore fashion?” from the perspective of Singapore’s essence as a multi-cultural, cosmopolitan port city. Having recently re-positioned ourselves as Singapore’s National Museum of Asian Antiquities and Decorative Art, the exhibition also represents our commitment to championing innovation in the space of tradition.”
With the exhibition split into two portions, the first leg is a showing of four Singapore-inspired pieces by the 2020 finalists of fashion design contest, Singapore Stories. This process was facilitated with the help of ACM’s Heritage Conservation Centre, which gave finalists an up-close look at archived textiles that in turn inspired their own designs.
The second leg of the exhibition sees a curation of works by eight local or locally-based designers, with an emphasis on including a range of creatives from industry veterans to emerging designers. Some names that are part of the line-up include Andrew Gn and Lai Chan as well as buzzy up-and-comers such as Baelf Design.
Key highlights of the exhibit include the Time Taken to Make a Dress piece that Constance Lau wore to the premiere of Crazy Rich Asians as well as Ong Shunmugam’s custom dress that was worn by writer Paige Parker at the Cannes Film Festival. To check out the pieces in person, head on down to the #SGFASHIONNOW exhibit which runs till December 19 this year.
For more information on #SGFASHIONNOW, visit the ACM website.
