Historical costumes held in museums and collections are garments no longer part of everyday wear and unavailable for economic consumption. Objects held in collections have an afterlife where they may be restored and exhibited or examined for teaching and research purposes. They can tell us about the time they were made, purchased, used, sold, discarded, or treasured and contrast contemporary fashion, which is a projection of oneself in the future.
Internal Monologues invites audiences to go beyond the façade of historical costumes and delve into the mystique of their interior, revealing their rich (hi)stories, asking us what historical costume can reveal that is absent within fashion and vice versa. By re-imagining historical artefacts from the collection of the National Trust of Australia (Victoria), Replica Project explores the symbiotic relationship between costume and fashion, creating “a passageway into history through desire.”
This exhibition is for anyone who is interested in the stories behind clothes, from how they were made and who made them, to where they were consumed and the people who owned and wore them.
About Amanda Nichols
Amanda is a Melbourne-based designer and founder of Replica Project. Nichol’s training in film and haute couture informs a multi-layered practice interrogating the complex connections between costume and fashion. Nichols has worked as a costume cutter and maker for film and haute couture, with credits including Baz Luhrmann’s Australia and The Great Gatsby and Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant. She has worked for Parisian haute couture atelier Caraco Canezou producing garments for Givenchy and Schiaparelli. She received the prestigious Australian Fashion Foundation award in 2019, the Australian Fashion Week Next-Gen award in 2021 and the Victorian Premiers design award in 2022.
