Selfridges opens its doors to unveil its much anticipated performance art project. For the next 5 weeks Selfridges will put on Shakespearean performances, but in a 21st-century reinterpretation, of the author’s most famous plays starting with Much Ado about Nothing.
The theatre performance series, titled the Refashioned Project, is the first of its kind in a department store. The intriguing program has the ability to introduce fashion in a new and inviting way.
The cast will be well dressed by an eclectic range of designers including Christopher Kane, Craig Green, Dries van Noten and Simone Rocha who’ve offered archival or one-off couture pieces inspired by Elizabethan times and Shakespeare’s plays to dress the store’s Oxford street windows.
A mix of young British actors such as Daniel Boyd known for his role in BBC’s “The Hollow Crown” and established Shakespearean actors, including Simon Callow and Meera Syal, make up the cast.
Done in collaboration with the Faction, an emerging theatre company based in the U.K., the retailer will put up the 5-week show run in an intimate auditorium that seats 122 people and is located in the Oxford street store’s lower ground floor.
“Shakespeare is part of the fabric of our creative world and of contemporary society. The words spoken, the images evoked, the dreams realized are of our time and his,” said Linda Hewson, creative director at Selfridges.
In a special edition, rapper Little Simz is set to partner with emerging designer Caitlin Price to re-create Shakespeare’s poetry during a music event held during London Fashion Week in September following Price’s presentation which will be held as part of Fashion East.
