Fashion and newspaper headlines are both ephemeral. Historically, newspapers, either as a material or source of inspiration, have been used in fancy dress and fashion in imaginative ways. Designers such as Elsa Schiaparelli, John Galliano, Demna Gvasalia and Rei Kawakubo, amongst others, have employed newspaper- printed fabrics in their creations, while various Paper Dresses from the 1960s are adorned with cuttings from the newspapers they promoted. However, the printed words are not incidental – they bear special meanings. With Paper Dresses from the ATOPOS collection as a starting point, this talk will explore the fascinating relationship between newspapers and fashion.

BIO

Myrsini Pichou fell down the rabbit hole of paper fashion fifteen years ago, when she joined Vassilis Zidianakis and Stamos Fafalios in their quest to discover the magic of paper garments through time. As a member of the organising team of the first ”RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion” exhibition curated by Vassilis Zidianakis in Athens in 2007, her main task was to register and document for the show more than 250 paper dresses from the 1960s from the ATOPOS cvc collection. Myrsini also contributed with an essay on the collection to the exhibition’s catalogue, which features texts by Alexandra Palmer, Kaat Debo, Akiko Fukai, Christina Leitner and Lydia Kamitsis, amongst others. Since then, and although she has never worn one (yet), paper dresses never cease to amaze her….

Myrsini’s own journey in the history of dress started in 2014, when she co-founded the “Dress and the Law” research project that explores the relationship between dress, fashion and legislation from the formation of the Greek state in the 19th century to the present day. The results of the most recent research activity of the project, focusing on refugee dress and legislation in Greece, will be published in 2019 in a chapter she co-authored in the Routledge Companion to Fashion Studies. Furthermore, Myrsini has published on 20th century fashion, dress collections, academic dress, art and fashion as well as anti-fashion, and, since 2010, she has been sitting on the Board of the Hellenic Costume Society.

A Courtauld Insitute of Art graduate, where she obtained an MA under Professor Aileen Ribeiro, Myrsini also holds an MSc in Cultural Organisations Management (Hellenic Open University) in addition to a BA in Theatre Studies (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens). Today a dedicated Athenian, she was born in Piraeus in 1977 and works at the Athens University History Museum.

#TextMe_PaperFashion, is a pop-up exhibition that investigates the relationship between text and paper in fashion through selected objects from the collection.

Tuesday 19 February, 7:00 pm

at The Hellenic Centre
(16–18 Paddington Street, Marylebone, London W1U 5AS)