Royal Ontario Museum presents BIG, an exhibition on view now uuntil Fall 2013, in The Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume.
A stunning display, BIG is exclusively drawn from the ROM’s collection of nearly 50,000 textiles and costumes. Showcasing 40 artifacts from around the world, this unique exhibition includes objects assuming their BIG status in a myriad of ways. With some objects publicly displayed for the first time, the installation offers a fresh, new way of exploring the ROM’s renowned collections.
A recent acquisition, and now a highlight of the Museum’s permanent collection and this exhibition, Passage #5 was designed by John Galliano for Christian Dior Couture. Specially commissioned by the ROM and made possible by the generous support of the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust, this dramatic coat-dress was inspired by fashion illustrator René Gruau’s drawings of the 1940s and 1950s and is a 21st century reworking of Dior’s 1947 New Look. Passage #5 was a highlight of Dior’s Spring 2011 collection. A short documentary, produced by Dior, and generously funded by The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, the ROM’s Textiles Endowment Fund, and the Louise Hawley Stone Charitable Trust, complements the display. The film details the intricacies involved in creating this remarkable garment, including the 500+ hours by a Dior team. The ROM is the sole international museum to commission such a unique document of the construction of an haute couture design.
Other exhibition highlights representing the breadth of the ROM’s international collections include a Pre-Columbian Peruvian feather cape dated to 1000 -1476; an Indonesian bark cloth wrapper; and spectacular textiles created for Exposition Internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes – the BIG Art Deco exhibition held in Paris, 1925. Textiles from Albania, Canada, China, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Italy, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, United Kingdom, and USA, vibrantly demonstrate the exhibition’s BIG global scope. In addition to Galliano for Dior, contemporary fashions by leading designers Martin Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Tam, and Tom Ford for Yves St Laurent are among the other BIG names on display.
Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume
Located on Level 4 of the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume opened to the public in April 2008 as part of the Renaissance ROM expansion project. Named in honour of Mrs. Patricia Harris, in appreciation of the ongoing generous support of Mr. William and Mrs. Patricia Harris, the Harris Gallery is one of the Museum’s most dramatic spaces with angular walls rising to approximately 13 metres. BIG occupies the entire Harris Gallery, featuring new displays in the Jennifer Ivey Bannock Exhibit; the Lynda Hamilton Exhibit; the Phyllis Hamilton Exhibit; and the Flavia Redelmeier Exhibit.
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
100 Queen’s Park
Toronto, ON, M5S 2C6
www.rom.on.ca