REFLECTIONS ON THE LIGHT

WE LOOK BACK AT OUR MET ACQUISITION AND SHARE NEVER BEFORE SEEN PHOTOS OF THE SUNRAY DRESS

Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum

Back in Spring 2024 we were delighted to share that our Sunray Dress, from the Memory Shapes collection, was acquired by The Metropolitan Museum of Art as a part of The Costume Institute’s Collection.

It was subsequently on view in their Spring 2024 exhibition, Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

As we are on the cusp of settling down for Winter we wanted to glance back and share imagery of our Sunray dress on display in Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion.

The term ‘Sunray’ and use of the bright saturated yellow, created with the heritage dye plant Weld, is a reflection on the vastly differing feelings of both joy and sorrow Phoebe was experiencing in 2022. She brought her first child into the world during the hottest summer the UK had seen to date. At the time of designing, in the summer of 2022, The UK Met Office issued a red ‘extreme heat’ and ‘danger to life’ warning for the first ever time in its history. The UK reached a temperature of 40.3 degrees.

“In a climate unaffected by human-induced climate change, it would be virtually impossible for temperatures in the UK to reach 40.C but climate change is already making UK heatwaves more frequent, intense and long-lasting.” - The Met Office

We are still so touched that this piece will remain forever safe in the esteemed archives of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute’s Collection. We share our immense thanks once again to Andrew Bolton and his team.