The graphic stripes of the Haçienda nightclub motif; The Madchester music scene of the 80s and 90s and Peter Saville’s cover art for Joy Division and New Order – the stylistic and cultural influences of the north of England have long been reference points for the fashion industry. In 2003, designer Raf Simons put Saville’s album imagery on the back of his parkas – coats that now change hands for more than £15k. More recently, Virgil Abloh of Off-White referenced the Haçienda in his designs, even recreating the club’s interior for his fashion week party with the help of its original creator Ben Kelly.
The north has also produced some of fashion’s most talked-about designers and photographers from the past few decades, from milliner Stephen Jones and menswear designer Christopher Shannon to Alasdair McLellan who shoots covers for the likes of Man About Town and advertising campaigns for Louis Vuitton. And now a new exhibition that opens this month in Liverpool – North: Identity, Photography, Fashion – aims to bring together northern cultural history alongside clothing, artwork, documentary images, fashion shoots and interviews in a show that cements the region’s homegrown creative output as well as its global influence.
Pinning down exactly what constitutes northern or southern style is arguably tricky. “I think it is impossible to summarise either region as having a specific style,” says Adam Murray, co-curator of the exhibition. “Often the north is written about or treated as one homogenised space, but this simply isn’t true. The same way that in the south, Bristol is very different to Plymouth or Milton Keynes. There are, though, certainly motifs and tropes that [fellow co-curator] Lou Stoppard and I have identified that would be difficult to argue have not originated in the north.”
Stoppard – a writer, broadcaster and editor-at-large for fashion website SHOWstudio – had increasingly noted northern influences in the work of key fashion designers, particularly in menswear. The rise of sportswear, and its nod to the 1980s casual look that was born in northern England, has seen it appear on a variety of runways. Stoppard points out Gosha Rubchinskiy’s SS17 collection, which featured tracksuits by Sergio Tacchini, Kappa and Fila. Raf Simons in SS16 also referenced Mark Leckey’s film Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, which namechecks all three of the labels seen on Rubchinskiy’s runway.
For Murray, an academic based in Manchester, the beginnings of the show were initially sparked around 2008: “I noticed that fashion editorials were explicitly referencing northern England in their titles and use of locations,” he says. Pylons, terraced houses, brick walls and washing hanging on lines in back garden – these were all potential backdrops for models in designer fashions. “This mainly coincided with the height of [northern model] Agyness Deyn’s fame,” adds Murray. “We have two of these editorials on display [in the exhibition] – [one by] Tim Walker for British Vogue and [another by] Alasdair McLellan for i-D.”
The exhibition will also showcase relevant pieces by Simons and Abloh, alongside Adidas trainers – styles that reference Ian Brown of the Stone Roses and the Gallagher brothers of Oasis – and clothes by Paul Smith, which nod to Shaun Ryder of the Happy Mondays. Also on display will be documentary photography from the past 100 years, spreads from style magazines (including Glen Luchford’s original prints of the Stone Roses from the Face) and a film of the late Corinne Day (known for her photographs of Kate Moss as the beginnings of “heroin chic’) while shooting in Blackpool.
“We were interested in the idea of an exhibition that was about place and space. There are so many amazing fashion exhibitions, but they are very London-centric,” Stoppard says. “There is a vogue for blockbuster, single-designer retrospectives and we wanted to do something different. We wanted to tie together ideas about identity and community with broader culture and fashion.” Turner prize winners Jeremy Deller and Mark Leckey have also lent for the show. A series of films with Gareth Pugh, Claire Barrow, Stephen Jones and Christopher Shannon also provide insight into growing up in the north, and the impact this had on their creative lives.
“All across the creative industries there are so many great talents who hail from the north and, while we do want to spotlight them, really this exhibition is about the people on the street,” says Stoppard. “I hope visitors recognise things that they experienced first hand – songs they danced to, clubs they frequented, streets they walked, icons they adored, clothes they wore. I want this exhibition to mean something to people.”
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North: Identity, Photography, Fashion runs from 6 Jan to 19 Mar, at Open Eye gallery, Liverpool
![[one by] Tim Walker](http://showstudio.com/img/images/155001-155200/155015_960n.jpg?1446654197){kind=link}