British costume designer and three-time Oscar winner Sandy Powell is donating the cream calico suit she wore to the 2020 Critics’ Circle, BAFTA and Oscar ceremonies to raise funds for Art Fund's £3.5-million campaign to save Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage.
Jarman (1942-1994) was a visionary filmmaker, artist and activist. After he purchased his cottage in Dungeness, Kent, in 1986, it quickly became a source of inspiration and a creative hub, where his artistic practices and collaborators came together. Today, the cottage represents the most complete distillation of his pioneering creativity across film, art, writing and gardening: from his 1990 film The Garden, starring Tilda Swinton, to his journal, Modern Nature, to poetry etched in the glass, to driftwood sculptures and the remarkable garden he created on the shingle beach.
More than 25 years after his death, Prospect Cottage continues to be a site of pilgrimage for people from all over the world who come to be inspired by its stark beauty and by Jarman’s legacy. The cottage and its contents are now being sold following the death in 2018 of Keith Collins, Jarman’s close companion in his final years, to whom he bequeathed the cottage.
Sandy Powell’s idea of auctioning a star-signed suit... is a brilliant, beautiful gesture...
Jarman was a close friend and mentor to Powell, who started her career working as the costume designer on his 1986 film Caravaggio. The suit she wore will be auctioned by Phillips to raise funds for Art Fund’s public appeal. The online auction will run from 11am on Wednesday 4 March to 5pm on Wednesday 11 March 2020. During this time the suit will be on display at the front reception at Phillips Berkeley Square.
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Throughout the awards season, Powell asked nominees to sign the suit. She managed to gather over 100 signatures, including those of Scarlett Johansson, Brad Pitt, Renée Zellweger, Bong Joon Ho, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Elton John, Joaquin Phoenix, Laura Dern and Saoirse Ronan, and many more.
Stephen Deuchar, Director of Art Fund, said: “Sandy Powell’s idea of auctioning a star-signed suit, made possible by Phillips, is a brilliant, beautiful gesture, propelling us further towards our important target and its challenging deadline.”
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Phillips, said: “Phillips is very proud to support Art Fund’s campaign to save Prospect Cottage and to protect Derek Jarman’s legacy. We are honoured to host both the online auction and the exhibition of Sandy Powell’s wonderful suit in our galleries on Berkeley Square. The goal in our partnership is to help secure Prospect Cottage’s future as a centre of creative activity and we are incredibly humbled to play a part.”
