"Made to Measure"
Glow 2024 Heritage Commission
"Made to Measure" (2024), screen prints, plastic-free water-based paint on cloth, © Armelle Skatulski.
Glow 2024, 17-18 February 2024, Sowerby Bridge Fire Station, Hollins Mills, Halifax, UK.
Originally commissioned by Sowerby Bridge Fire and Water as part of the Heritage High Street Action Zone Cultural Programme funded by Historic England and Arts Council England.
“Made to Measure” (2024)
The project explores Sowerby Bridge’s living legacy of clothes manufacturing and its links to Northern Soul dancing. “Soul Bags” made to measure for the project become props bringing people together to explore industrial heritage and working class culture through the theme of dance.
Screen prints on cloth were made from a series of recorded dance performances during which dancers wear “Soul Bags,” the name given to baggy dancing trousers by Spencers Trousers. The latter who celebrated their centenary in 2022 still fabricate made-to-measure trousers today and their own archival records show how their former owner Alan Oldfield thrived in making ‘Soul Bags’ in Northern Soul’s heyday. The project stems from an interest in contrasting leisure vs labour time and in dance as a form of empowerment and collective experience in a working class context and beyond.
Many thanks to:
Sharon Cameron, for her dance performances and modelling; Spencers Trousers; Andy Abbott, cultural producer for Glow 2024, and Fire & Water.
Originally commissioned by Sowerby Bridge Fire and Water as part of the Heritage High Street Action Zone Cultural Programme funded by Historic England and Arts Council England.
Untitled, from "Made to Measure," screen print on cloth, Fire Station Main Entrance, Hollins Mills, Sowerby Bridge.
Untitled, from "Made to Measure," screen print on cloth, reproduction of a 1980s Spencers advert by Armelle Skatulski. Cloth courtesy of J. & C. Joel, Sowerby Bridge.
