Friday 12.01.24. 6.30–8.30pm. Free. Book via Eventbrite

Clothes from our past shape who we are, and who we will be. Why do we hold on to certain garments and what do they tell us and others about our lives?

Mark C. O’Flaherty asks 14 individuals who work with or use clothes in a unique way: how has fashion created something significant in your life? Through fascinating conversations, and photoshoots of their private collections, in New York, London and Milan, he constructs a portrait of each person through their intimate relationships with fashion, featuring The Idiosyncratic Fashionistas, Charlie Casely-Hayford, John Matheson (McQueen Vault), Sandy Powell, Stephen Jones, Carla Sozzani, Winn Austin, Carmen Haid, Susanne Bartsch, Karlo Steel, Karim Rashid, Steven Philip, and Desmond is Amazing. How have these people used fashion as a vessel for memory or identity to develop their own narratives, and what does our relationship with clothing say about its changing nature as a commodity? With a foreword by influential fashion tastemaker Amanda Harlech, and opening conversations with three of fashion’s most respected scholars, Valerie Steele, Andre Walker and Claire Wilcox, Narrative Thread is an eye-opening resource for our understanding of fashion’s past and present – and its continuing importance in our lives.

Mark C. O’Flaherty is a London-based interiors and portrait photographer with one foot in New York (and other limbs across Europe). He has worked as a luxury interiors photographer for Issey Miyake, Hermès, Knoll, Nobu, Diane von Furstenberg, Established & Sons, Richard James and Rupert Bevan, as well as international editions of AD, World of Interiors, Financial Times Weekend, HTSI, Elle Decoration, Marie Claire Maison, Ideat, Vogue Living, MiLK Decoration, Interview, Sunday Times Style and The Times. He also writes about design regularly for many of the above publications as well as The New York Times.

Edinburgh born Shirley Manson is a grammy-nominated songwriter and lead singer of the critically acclaimed alternative rock band Garbage. She is also a part time writer, actress and podcaster in her free time.

Photo of Shirley Manson: Brian Ziff