dr lucy gundry

Enclothed Knowledges

An AHRC Practice Based Fashion Research Network Project between University of the West of England + The New School, New York

10 June – 25 July 2026

Arnold and Sheila Aronson Galleries, 66 Fifth Avenue, New York

Photography © Lucy Gundry

‘Pieces’

By Lucy Gundry

Please choose a bag, carry it around the gallery with you then return it to this table.

Examine the contents inside and fill out a label.

Thank you!

These bags hold a selection of historical to present day pieces of clothing. Each piece carries evidence of previous wearing relationships, experiences and acts as a snapshot of a life story. 

Clothing plays an important role in the navigation and communication of our identity and selves. When dressing, the choices we make can communicate aspects of our distinct selves (e.g., the actual, ideal, or ought self), our personal identity, role identities and social identities and in some cases items in our wardrobes hold memories of past selves. (Çili, Bardey & Khadaroo, 2026).

Viewers are invited to imagine stories featuring the pieces in these bags, perhaps by reflecting on their own life stories and wearing experiences or of someone else’s.

This work serves as a ‘meaning-making resource’ (Masuch & Hefferon, 2018) for practice-based research in enclothed curating. Items loaned curtesy of Bath Theatrical Costume Hire.

Anarchiving Apparel Vitrine

Bath Spa University, Locksbrook Road, Bath

19 JAN – 2 FEB 2026

Photography © Lucy Gundry

These historic items are selected from the clothing collection at Frome Museum. They have little provenance, yet collectively they are able to ‘show and tell’ past wearing stories from the 1800’s and 1900’s. This vitrine acts as a ‘repertory of traces’ (Massumi, 2016) curated to allow historic items of clothing a voice in contemporary conversations. The viewer is invited to imagine how these items might be worn to tell new other, untold and unknown enclothed life stories in the future.

(Le Guin and Harraway, 2024, Massumi and Manning, 2016, Trouillot, 2015)

Worn Out in Frome

7 – 29 September 2024

Amica, Cheap Street + Frome Museum, Somerset, U.K.

Worn Out in Frome is an exhibition of lives worn in and out through clothes in Frome from 1800 to the present day staged in the Georgian windows of Amica on Cheap Street, Frome and Frome Museum.

Through the act of getting dressed as ‘wearers’ we feel the characteristics of our clothes on and off our body, inside and out, private and public in our home and on the street. Over time the stresses and strains created during this wearing and caring become embedded as in our clothes as characteristics that communicate not just the look but the feel of being a wearer in the world, which we all are.

This exhibition explores how our wearing relationship with clothes can be ‘felt’ through the way we ‘see’ clothes, how we care for clothes and the impact of repair on the sustainability of this relationship as we view it.

Photography © Lucy Gundry | Window artwork by Donna Sarah

Featuring historic items of dress from the collection in Frome Museum and contemporary visibly repaired pieces by Skye Pennant.

Museum about Town

Photography © Lucy Gundry