PREEN X BEYOND THE LITTLE BLACK DRESS

The Kasia Dress from Spring Summer 2017 has been featured in the National Museum of Scotland's 2023 Exhibition: Beyond the Little Black Dress.  The exhibition explored design classics to cutting-edge catwalk creations, Beyond the Little Black Dress deconstructs this iconic garment and examines the radical power of the colour black in fashion.

The Dress is featured in the Spiritual Black section of the exhibition. This focuses on how Western interpretations of black are underscored by the early Christian Church which equated black with sin. Historically associated with demonic cults and witchcraft, black as the personification of the dark unknown has morphed into a trope of evil. Yet in ancient Egypt, as in other parts of Africa and Asia, black had both positive and negative associations. Simultaneously symbolic of life and death, it was linked to the fertile aspect of the earth, the passage to the afterlife, and the promise of rebirth.

The religious sphere and the multitude of belief systems have powerfully influenced the fashion for black.  Contemporary fashion designers in the West often borrow creatively - and provocatively - from the disparate practices of Roman Catholic Christianity, occultism and Paganism, with designs that bridge the sacred and the secular.

Fashion's fascination with the mystical connotations of black is intertwined with Pagan symbols, rituals and histories.  This Preen by Thornton Bregazzi dress is printed with the brand's own floral pentagram design - inspired by both Paganism and the history of witchcraft on the isle of Man, where the designers Justin Thornton and Thea Bregazzi grew up.