PP MFF EVENT | FASHION HOUSES: Fashion Designers at Home with Peter McNeil

Fashion and interior design are intimately linked. Twentieth-century couturiers paid enormous attention to their homes. The very words ‘house of’ suggest an intimate relationship between fashion designing, retailing and living. As settings for the design and art circles – sometimes literary - in which fashion designers generally moved, the couturier’s home is an index of their relationship to style. Couturiers competed with others in the appearance industries for publicity. We will go on a surprising journey, from Vionnet and the Arts and Crafts to Chanel and her decorators, Dior’s 1860s revival, Balenciaga’s austerity, and onwards to Anna Sui and her Gothic revival.

DR PETER McNEIL is Distinguished Professor of Design History at the University of Technology Sydney. He writes and lectures across design, fashion, textiles, interiors and domestic life. He has published monographs including Luxury: A Rich History and Pretty Gentlemen: Eighteenth-Century Dress and The Macaroni Fashion World. 

This lecture is presented on-site at TJC as part of the PayPal Melbourne Fashion Festival Independent Programme. Please see your ticket for details.  NOTE: Tickets for this event do not include access to our exhibition-house, Fairhall. Guided tours of the current exhibition can be booked separately.

This lecture is supported by The Colin Holden Charitable Trust.

Image: Model Wearing Schiaparelli blouse in the Schiaparelli store, Place Vendome, Paris. 1950. Photo: André Ostier