Miniskirt inventor Mary Quant’s work to feature in major V&A Dundee fashion exhibition next year

V&A Dundee will delve into the world of fashion and nightclubs in 2020 with major exhibitions celebrating the work of Mary Quant and five decades of club culture.

The first international retrospective on the iconic fashion designer Dame Mary Quant will run next year from 4 April until 6 September.

The exhibition Mary Quant, currently on show at V&A South Kensington, explores the years between 1955 and 1975 when Quant captured the spirit of the sixties and utilised mass production techniques to create a new look for women.

By challenging conventions Quant encouraged a new age of feminism and revolutionised the high street with her playful designs, from hot pants, miniskirts and trousers for women to accessories, tights and make-up.

Co-curated for the V&A by Jenny Lister and Stephanie Wood, the show draws on the V&A’s extensive fashion holdings and features an extraordinary range of garments tracked down following a public call-out. The V&A also had unprecedented access to Dame Mary Quant’s archive.

V&A Dundee will then go on to explore the world’s most influential nightclubs with the exhibition Night Fever: Designing Club Culture which will be on display from 31 October 2020 to 14 February 2021.

From Studio 54 where Andy Warhol was a regular, to the Haçienda in Manchester designed by Ben Kelly with graphic design by Peter Saville, and more recent concepts by the OMA architecture studio for the Ministry of Sound in London, the exhibition is the first large-scale examination of the relationship between club culture and design.

By charting the evolution of nightclubs since the 1960s the show explores how architecture and interior design merge with sound, light, fashion, graphics and visual effects to create hugely influential epicentres of pop culture.

Developed by the Vitra Design Museum and ADAM – Brussels Design Museum, it includes films, photography, posters, flyers, and fashion, as well as light and music installations.

The 2020 exhibition programme at V&A Dundee will follow on from the museum’s exploration of the design of ocean liners, videogames and the science and fiction of robots.

Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt, the revelatory V&A exhibition exploring the design and cultural importance of videogames, is open now and runs until 8 September 2019.

Hello, Robot. Design Between Human and Machine, a groundbreaking exhibition challenging our assumptions about robots and investigating how they are shaping the world we live in, will run from 2 November 2019 to 9 February 2020.

Tickets for Hello, Robot. Design Between Human and Machine are available to pre-book from today [Wednesday 10 July].

Sophie McKinlay, Director of Programme at V&A Dundee, said: “V&A Dundee celebrates the exciting world of design and our 2020 exhibitions continue to highlight a diverse range of disciplines.

“Hello, Robot is a future-focused show asking big questions about how technology will continue to influence our lives.

“V&A South Kensington has groundbreaking fashions shows so I’m thrilled that Mary Quant will be the first we bring to Dundee. As well as showcasing influential designs it also explores ideas of brand and identity at a time when people were eager for change.

“We will then shine a spotlight on a design environment with endless possibilities in Night Fever, an exhibition looking at club culture through the lens of design.”

As well as bringing large-scale international exhibitions to Dundee, V&A Dundee will also showcase the design practice of people pushing the boundaries of design.

In the Michelin Design Gallery until 1 September this year, visitors to V&A Dundee can see Hands of X: Design Meets Disability, an exhibition exploring the design of prosthetic hands. It focuses on Hands of X, a prototype collection designed by Graham Pullin, Andrew Cook, Corinne Hutton and Eddie Small that encourages wearers to choose from a range of material combinations and create a hand that feels their own.

Visitors are asked to contribute their experience and imagination by taking part in the next phase of this active research project. The exhibition is being realised in partnership with the University of Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design.

This autumn V&A Dundee will highlight the work of the exciting menswear designer Nicholas Daley in a display revealing the inner workings of his studio and examining how music and the designer’s Jamaican and Scottish heritage influence his work. The exhibition is the first in a series exploring the importance of the studio as a site of exploration and creative endeavour.

Philip Long, Director of V&A Dundee, said: “V&A Dundee is developing its role as an international centre for design and we are delighted to be working with colleagues from across the V&A and with institutions internationally to bring the most ambitious exhibitions to Dundee and Scotland.

“We are thrilled to be announcing a future programme – from robotics and prosthetics to the incredibly stylish fashion of Mary Quant and Nicholas Daley and the world of nightclubs – that continues our exploration of the extraordinary diversity of design.”

V&A Dundee