St Fagans Museum of National History in Wales has attracted global attention after the design house Alexander McQueen revealed that the museum's collections inspired a jacket worn by global superstar Beyoncé on the December 2020 edition of British Vogue.
The fashion house unveiled its autumn-winter collection in March and confirmed in Vogue's latest issue that its designs were based on research carried out at St Fagans, part of Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum Wales – NMW).
The jacket worn by Beyoncé was inspired by Welsh lovespoons, a type of intricately carved wooden spoon traditionally made by young men as a love token for their sweethearts.
The team from Alexander McQueen, including creative director Sarah Burton, conducted several visits to the museum in late 2019 and early 2020 to examine its collections of traditional Welsh craft.
Burton told Vogue that her team had been inspired by Wales’s “incredible artistic poetic heritage and its folklore and craft”.
"This jacket symbolises the juxtaposition of female power and sensitivity, with sleeves hand-draped in the studio to form exploded hearts,” she said. “The body is strictly tailored and the shoulders are sculptured, echoing the lovespoons that we found in Welsh houses – traditional tokens of endearment exchanged by lovers ahead of marriage."
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She added: “The heart is a universal symbol of both strength and love. Beyoncé is an icon who inspires both of those things in people of all ages around the world.”
The fashion collection is described on Alexander McQueen’s website as “a love letter to women and to families, colleagues and friends”.
“The woman is courageous, grounded, bold: heroic,” it continues. “There is a sense of protection in the clothes, of safety and comfort, evoked through quilting and blankets. The hearts are a symbol of togetherness, of being there for others.”
Elen Phillips, principal curator of contemporary and community history at NMW, told Museums Journal that the collaboration had been an “unbelievable experience”.
She said: “The design team from McQueen made several research visits to St Fagans in late 2019/early 2020. They wanted to 'get to know Wales' through our collections and historic buildings, and were particularly interested in the personal biographies of the craft objects they saw - from patchwork and quilted pieces to carved lovespoons and woven blankets.
“The resulting collection is both a testimony to the creativity of the McQueen designers and the skills of Welsh makers past. We are immensely proud of the collaboration and the exposure it has given the museum and Wales on an international stage. Beyoncé on the cover of Vogue wearing a jacket inspired by a lovespoon from St Fagans is the stuff of dreams!”
A virtual tour of St Fagans will shortly be available on the MA website. The tour is part of the Museums Association Conference 2020. See the full programme here
In the fine words of the MA’s newly published Manifesto, co-written by David Anderson, director-general, Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales: The coronavirus pandemic has sharply revealed the realities of contemporary inequality, in ways that can no longer be evaded or concealed… Museums have a responsibility to work with their communities to overcome the challenges of poverty and exclusion and to achieve equality of outcomes… Museum activism is about taking positive action to make the world a better place.
The jacket costs £3,990.00 on Net a Porter