‘Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk’, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK, 29 February–18 March and 27 August–25 October 2020

explored within the artificiality of the exhibition space. In the exhibition space, the theatricality of fashion came to the fore, particularly in the exaggerated features of Georgian court dress on display. The lavish examples of a white silk sack-back dress and a gentleman’s court suit, both c. 1775, were paired and set in front of a mock Palladian entrance that encased angled mirrors, emphasising the performativity of high society. The caricatures of James Gillray were another key feature of the exhibition, with a large selection of prints assembled from the Donald Coverdale Collection. These provided our main insight into the world of Georgian celebrity and the dual role of women such as Lady Sarah Archer and the Duchess of Rutland as both trendsetters and targets of satire. Gillray’s 1810 set of three images, Progress of the Toilet (The Stays, The Wig and Dress Completed), which satirises the lengthy and unnatural stages of women getting ready for the evening, were the first items on display in the house and set the tone for the rest of the exhibition: fashion, in all its layers and excess, was on show to be marvelled at and ridiculed in equal measure. By stressing the artificiality of fashion, however, the exhibition allowed the social satires of Gillray and of contemporary commentators in newspapers and periodicals to provide the main framing of our interpretation. As such, it did little to counter well-worn narratives that treat eighteenth-century consumers, particularly women, as a part of a hopelessly ‘fashion-addicted society’. We gained only rare glimpses of the very real emotional connections such material culture can reflect and forge. A stay busk from the 1790s, for example, was intriguingly inscribed with the unattributed initials ‘E.P.’ and a heart-shaped plaque, suggestive of its potential role as a love token. A pair of brown brocade latchet shoes, meanwhile, with golden guineas attached to the soles to bring luck and prosperity as she walked into marriage, were worn by a Miss Thorpe in the 1740s for her wedding day. These tantalising moments of personal connection helped to breathe life into the exhibition, in which the fantasy of fashion was often abstracted from the reality of the people who consumed it. As a showcase of the dramatic developments in style across the Georgian era, the exhibition was an undeniable success. It brought together a sumptuous range of clothing that provided a feast for fashionlovers and lived up to its tag line of ‘extravagant, excessive, often extreme but always exciting’.