Heritage Malta has launched a capsule exhibition, in collaboration with Azzopardi Studio, at the Inquisitor’s Palace in Vittoriosa.
Titled Couture and Spectacle, the new display features four couture gowns by Azzopardi Studio, created as contemporary responses to a historical evening gown from the national textiles collection, also on exhibit.
The latter, a striking blue tulle and taffeta dress – an original mid-20th-century piece by American designer Will Steinman – was previously owned by Peggy Mamo née Edmonson. It was generously donated by Claire Pisani née Hughes in honour of her aunt-in-law Peggy, wife of her uncle Joseph Mamo Jr.
Couture and Spectacle repositions the dress as both artefact and performance – a legacy worn and reimagined. The exhibition challenges the traditional boundaries between historical costume and fashion as living art.
Inspired by the revivalist spirit of the 1920s, the four designed gowns weave together elements of Art Deco geometry, alchemical motifs and celestial symbolism of the tarot.
As part of the collaboration, Azzopardi Studio has also donated another dress to the national collection. The dress in question formed part of Azzopardi’s collection titled On the Museum’s Ruins, exhibited at the National Museum of Archaeology’s Gran Salon in 2018, as part of a project supported by the Arts Council Malta.
The exhibition runs until September 30, opening from Tuesday to Sunday from 9am to 5pm (last admission at 4.30pm). Entrance is included in the Inquisitor’s Palace and the National Museum of Ethnography experience. Persons with impaired mobility may find access to the exhibition area challenging because of stairs.
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