North: Fashioning Identity

North: Fashioning identity…

Preconceptions and stereotypes about northern England have long existed, continuously presented and re-presented over time and through a range of media; there is a knowing familiarity in what we assume the sights, sounds and experiences of life in northern England are.

Both locally and internationally conjured up by many people who have never even visited.

As a southerner I have been to the north just once, an impromptu Christmas spent in Liverpool, simply because, I thought it would be fun.

It was bleak. Literally, freezing cold and grey skies, but I loved Liverpool, the people, the docks, the conversations and laughs with everyone I met, the army of girls with rollers in their hair. These representations which had permeated my conscious were what I had expected and indeed encountered.

Yet as you would imagine actually being in a northern city taught me a lot and I became fascinated with Liverpool’s history, especially the enforced repatriation of Chinese seamen in the 1940’s.

My affinity with the north of England, a cultural area which actually constitutes three separate regions came from that particular trip, everything I encountered was both familiar and surprising at the same time. 

The exhibition ‘North: Fashioning Identity’ first presented at the open eye gallery in Liverpool. It sets out to show the influence and impact that northern style has had across the world, from Belgian designer Raf Simons’s to Chicago’s Virgil Abloh, northern style is revered and re-appropriated the world over.

 “This is not a style exhibition” proclaimed curator Lou Stoppard, perhaps concerned that the use of the word would do a dis-service to their aims of presenting a holistic depiction of visual representations of the north, beyond that of the football terrace style of the casuals.

But Stoppard needn't have worried, northern England has demonstrated a cultural consistency in its output of music, fashion, art and design that these elements as a whole would have been difficult for any viewer to ignore. Yet as debate continues as to how funding in the arts is often allocated disproportionately to the south and the sense of raised eyebrows when northern cities are given praise and accolades for the cultural contributions they have made and continue to make, Stoppard’s need to get that off her chest is understandable.

So in their desire to give an accurate portrayal of northern England the exhibition was in fact quite clearly stylistically considered; Stoppard and co curator Adam Murray attempted to give almost equal attention to photography, fashion, installation and video.

The stereotypes of the north were highlighted in the show but in no clumsy manner, the symbols of the north were the contexts of the show.

The first space showed many of these symbols, used time and time again within fashion and photography. Clothes hung on washing lines alongside women in clubs sitting amongst pints and applying lipstick in 'looking for love’. The few prints here however did not quite command the space of their new home at Somerset house initially making the environment seem slightly lacklustre yet things picked up as I got to the lively sets designed by Tony Hornecker, near the culmination of the show. I felt an effective attempt had been made to give the viewer both a sense of journey and momentum.

Men followed women in which various types of northern women were presented; the strong matriarch, the care giver and the footballer’s wife. Like my trip to Liverpool the stories here were both familiar and surprising. The lack of representation of women workers on the docks was discussed by photographer Alice Hawkins and many of the images presented were taken by chance. The initial intention to shoot models in fashion stories had been discarded for featuring local women, proving the area continued to be a site of intrigue and fascination for photographers.

The many magazines featuring these fashion stories were presented in a specially made vitrine, the structure of course Sheffield steel. The attention to detail in all the works whether documentary photography or stylised fashion shoots and how they sat alongside each other were what really gave the sense that both representation, stereotypes and possible myths were being highlighted, examined and presented proudly. Cultural output followed landscapes and the show got busier and more varied with its works, the penultimate room featuring novel sets by Hornecker to accompany the SHOWstudio interview films.

The nature and spirit of the show was that it was a collaborative effort, with contributors from within and beyond the north; so if one thing was missing then maybe it was a greater lens on the significant cultural diversity in northern England.

Perhaps not previously fashionable for media depictions, the experiences and contentions of a wider range of people who had made northern England their home should have been considered.

Here would have undoubtedly contained many more truths and representations about the regions and perhaps how people have had to fashion their own identity. As the exhibition closed on the themes Northern powerhouse and Brexit, greater attention to diversity would have been especially pertinent, summarising the complexity of the ways in which people from all over the world have affiliations with the north. yet in its aims North: Fashioning Identity is a recognisable, curious and well crafted show.