'Matching Mondays': a clothes collection meets our unique art collection, ESCALA

This summer, the Essex Collection of Art from Latin America (ESCALA) launched a new Instagram Reels series Matching Mondays, in which Assistant Curator Gisselle Giron matches her outfits to selected artworks from the Collection.

The series aims to highlight the diverse themes within ESCALA in a fun and engaging way. In this blog post, Gisselle shares more about how the series came about, the process of recording the videos and selecting the outfits, and the preparations for a second season of Matching Mondays.

Gisselle Giron, Assistant Curator (ESCALA and University Art Collections), poses next to Siron Franco’s Self-Portrait (2001) in ESCALA’s Teaching and Research Space.

Matching Mondays

During the summer, as students break for their holidays or focus on finishing their dissertations, we find more time to experiment, develop projects, plan for the upcoming academic year, and think creatively about ways to engage with students.

I have long been thinking about doing a spotlight series on our Collection.

We have so many fantastic artworks in our Teaching and Research space that I wanted to create a series that would raise the visibility of some of our artworks, which could also prove to be great assets in teaching and research at Essex.

Gisselle Giron, shows us some of the gems of her Moschino collection.

When drafting the pitch for the series, I thought it would be too straightforward to simply narrate about the artwork in question. While there’s nothing wrong with that, social media often works best with a twist—something that creates a sense of relatability and gives viewers a glimpse of not only the artwork but also the personality of the person presenting it.

Whenever I go to exhibitions, especially the ones I’m excited about, I always find myself choosing an outfit inspired by the theme of the show. As an independent curator, I also try to coordinate my outfit with the exhibition I’m curating, dressing up for the private view or inaugural party.

It was only natural, then, that the new Instagram series for ESCALA would invite viewers to learn more about our Collection through outfits inspired by the very art objects I would be discussing. 

Vintage

One of the great traditions of life in the UK is vintage clothing shopping and charity shop browsing.

Colchester has some amazing shops; I’m a devotee of the St. Helena Vintage Shop on Sir Isaac’s Walk and Oxfam on St. John’s Street.

The UK also has an extensive network of people selling unused clothes on platforms like Vinted, eBay, Etsy, and Vestiaire Collective, all of which I actively use. I’m also obsessed with studying and getting to know the ethos, preferred fabrics, and characteristics of designers through their runway shows and documented collections, as well as hunting for pieces I’ve seen in print media or on TV.

This year, the designer I became fascinated with was Franco Moschino. His approach to fashion is democratic, irreverent, and bold, and while he poked fun at the fashion industry, he was still deeply passionate about clothing and its power to convey a complex sense of identity and contemporary culture. I thought it would be a fitting tribute to Franco Moschino to create a series where clothes are celebrated for their potential to mean multiple things to diverse communities.

For me, clothes often remind me of artworks I come across, either at the Art Collections at the University of Essex or in studios, galleries, museums, and exhibitions. 

Gisselle’s summer wardrobe.

Preparing for Matching Mondays

Preparing each week for Matching Mondays has been fun. I keep a photographic list of all my clothes (yes, I do—I highly recommend it, as it helps you find exciting new combinations!), and I browsed our Collection catalogue while reviewing my spreadsheet of clothes.

In some cases, I’ve even bought clothes because they reminded me of an artwork I loved. For example, this happened with María Freire’s América del Sur (1990). When I bought a Global International 1970s shift dress a few years ago, I knew I liked it because it reminded me of Freire’s abstracted, passionate figures. In other cases, it was just a lucky coincidence.

As an emerging Moschino clothing collector, one of the must-haves is garments with cloud prints, which I have been obsessively hunting down. This coincided with a time when we received a visitor request for more information on Ramiro Arango’s artwork. This reminded me of the fantastic depiction of clouds in Arango’s Assomption avec l'artiste (1995), and that’s how our third episode of Matching Mondays was born.

Gisselle Giron poses next to Ramiro Arango’s Assomption avec l’artiste (1995) at ESCALA’s Teaching and Research Space.

Discover Matching Mondays

Matching Mondays has only been possible thanks to the great support of Elena Ikonomou, Communications and Engagement Assistant here at the Library and Cultural Services, who has helped me throughout the process of recording and editing these videos. We planned to have a first season of eight episodes and are aiming to produce a second season, as many “matching” garments and artworks were left out of the first season. As Elena says, these first episodes are truly just “the tip of the iceberg.”

So far, we have dedicated episodes to:

1. María Freire’s América del Sur (1990)
2. Siron Franco’s Self-Portrait (2001)
3. Ramiro Arango’s Assomption avec l’artiste (1995)
4. Jac Leirner’s O Livro (dos cem) (1987)
5. José Guadalupe Posada’s frontpage design for the Gallery of the Children’s Theatre The Devil’s Auction
6. Tiíta Machado’s Á caminho da festa de Iemanjá (1996)

The first season of Matching Mondays will run until Monday 30 September, and the second season will air in December 2024. Make sure to follow ESCALA on Instagram not to miss any episode.

Gisselle Giron poses next to Tiíta Machado’s Á caminho da festa de Iemanjá (1996)  at ESCALA’s Teaching and Research Space.