Art and fashion collide as Kildare Village becomes first fashion brand to team up with IMMA

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Move over Dublin, there’s a new cultural quarter in town, and it’s bringing art to the masses. Kicking off this Culture Night, Kildare Village and the Irish Museum of Modern Art’s (IMMA) first collab will make you Discover Art, Desire Fashion.

Have you ever desired a dress, or a coat, so much that it made you feel something on a deeper level than the garment itself? And have you ever wondered why?

A new art exhibition, which explores the evolving role of desire in art and life and its relationship to structures of power, is here to decode desire in all its forms.

And your favourite shopping destination, Kildare Village, has seen a gap in the market to bring this art to the masses.

From September, shoppers will find more than luxury fashion at Kildare Village

From this September, Kildare Village will be offering more than just luxury fashion at discounted prices. The shopping destination has become the first fashion brand to partner with IMMA for a series of exhibitions designed to make us think, express, and potentially act.

Ideally kicking off the partnership this Culture Night (September 20), Desire: A Revision from the 20th Century to the Digital Age, will explore the evolving role of desire in art and life.

This group exhibition, featuring works by artists such as Tracey Emin, Max Ernst, and Helen Chadwick, spans almost 100 years and follows the development of desire through the lens of the Eurocentric male gaze. This is looked at through the lens of everything from tech companies to architecture, and how their influence has shaped elements of our everyday life.

Kildare Village is the first fashion brand to partner with IMMA

Under the banner Discover Art, Desire Fashion, Kildare Village, in partnership with IMMA, will house pieces from the National Collection of Modern and Contemporary Art, which includes 3,500 artworks from Irish and international artists from the 1940s onwards, from the end of September.

As part of the partnership with IMMA, Kildare Village will also host events for fashion, art and culture lovers of all ages both in IMMA and in Kildare Village.

Commenting on the first-of-its-kind partnership, IMMA director Annie Fletcher said: ‘Our new partnership with Kildare Village is inspirational, not only because they are fully engaged with our artistic project, but we are discovering together that we can see the potential of having a broad and international dialogue; about how art and creativity zooms into our most core desires while pushing us outward and onward into the world and into the future.’

Kildare Village has partnered with IMMA for a Discover Art, Desire Fashion series

The partnership will also include IMMA’s Azure programme – which aims to make art galleries and museums around Ireland dementia-friendly spaces – which will be extended to the Village in November to mark World Alzheimer’s Month.

A temporary IMMA Shop will open in Kildare Village selling sought-after limited edition prints, art catalogues, the Desire catalogue and, of course, the fun quirky gifts that the IMMA Shop is loved for.

Fashion and culture vultures can catch a live recording of IMAGE’s fashion podcast Smart Casual, sponsored by Kildare Village, at IMMAO on Wednesday, September 25, with guest speaker Rachel Thomas, who is the Senior Curator and Head of Exhibitions at IMMA, and co-curator of the Desire exhibition.