ARTHUR

The installation emphasises Liberty’s pivotal influence upon the fashion world. It complemented the store’s design, the eclecticism of its collections and Liberty’s individual identity among London’s high-street shops. The display focuses on the figure of Arthur Lasenby Liberty and casts him in the role of fashion’s liberator. He is portrayed as encountering a dissolute, fantastical and depraved couture landscape that represents London’s pre-Liberty’s world; as the narrative continues, Arthur is shown to herald a new promise of better, higher quality fashion for the city. The narrative plays on the iconography of ‘Noah’s ark’ and the imagery of sea-faring harks back to the naval history of the famous shop front on Great Marlborough Street – the Grade II* Tudor-revival building was constructed in 1924 using the timbers of two ships: the HMS Impregnable and HMS Hindustan.

The Team