PRETENTIOUS
1. Something pretending to be something that it is. 2. An experiment in excess; excess on trial. 3. The courting and claiming of ridicule; making embarrassment the solution and not the problem. 4. Exposing a certain blandness in the environment, a needless uniformity in the situation; a revealing of assumptions; a reinforcing of conventions. 5. Full of misgiving.

Photograph by Norbert Schoerner from The Concise Dictionary of Dress publication, published by Violette Editions in association with Artangel. The Concise Dictionary of Dress was at Blythe House from April - June 2010. Installation by Judith Clark, text by Adam Phillips. See here for details.