courtesy of Molly Goddard by Ben Broomfield

The first acquisitions include Hackney-based, British fashion designer Molly Goddard’s hot pink ‘Daria’ dress from her autumn/winter 2019 collection that was worn by Beyoncé in her 2020 album Black is King. The full-length dress is made of 61 metres of tulle net fabric and was the largest dress that Goddard had ever made at the time of creation. The dress is inspired by baby doll dresses and is exaggerated in scale, celebrating the power of femininity.

This will sit alongside ten photographic prints by British fashion photographer Jamie Hawkesworth from his 2011 – 2018 series, Preston Bus Station. The series consists of portraits of passengers passing through the Grade II listed 1960s Brutalist station in Lancashire – which was threatened for demolition but later saved, with Hawkesworth’s photographic series forming part of the local campaign. The V&A is the first UK institution to acquire Hawkesworth’s work.