Midlothian fashion teacher's 'surreal' New York trip to see her Alzheimer's collection in Met Gala exhibit
Nadia Pinkney says it's been like a "weird fever dream"
Last updated 16 hours ago
A Midlothian fashion teacher says the past week has been like a “fever dream” after seeing her Alzheimer's-inspired collection featured at a Met Gala exhibition in New York.
Nadia Pinkney – who teaches art and fashion at St David’s High School in Dalkeith – created the designs for her fashion degree at Heriot-Watt university in 2016.
After leaving the fashion industry to retrain as a secondary school teacher, Nadia pulled the pieces out of a box in her classroom and flew to New York last week to see her work unveiled at the opening on Thursday.
Her collection is being featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ‘s new exhibition – Costume Art – which opened to the public on 10 May.
“It surpassed any dream I’ve ever had.”
Nadia told Forth 1 News: “It was absolutely amazing to be part of such a prestigious event and exhibition. It surpassed any dream I've ever had. It was quite a surreal experience to see the work I created about a decade ago be on display to all these amazingly famous people, and also people of New York or anyone that visits now.”
Nadia’s graduate collection was inspired by her grandmother and great-grandmother who both had Alzheimer’s disease. She worked with researchers and doctors and used brain scans to create her prints.
“Having conversations with people that were visiting the Met and looking at the collection, and them realising that the inspiration was Alzheimer's, people could reflect on their own experiences with the disease, and it was just really lovely to be part of,” Nadia said. “It was really emotive, to be honest, because it was such a deeply personal project that started a long time ago.”
“It’s probably in the best place now rather than a box in my classroom!”
She added: “They've asked to keep the work in their permanent archive, so it's probably in the best place now rather than in a box in my classroom, which is where it was for quite a few years!”
When Nadia was first contacted on LinkedIn about her collection in September, she thought it was a scam. She said the curation team had been looking for fashion pieces inspired by cognitive disorders and stumbled upon articles about her work.
“It was quite hush-hush – I couldn't really say to many people, and I've come back into work on Monday, and the kids all seem quite excited as well. They're all like, oh my god, how was America? They're like, miss, you were on the news.
"Hopefully it inspires the kids - if their teacher can do that, what can they do in the future?"
“I feel like I've been on some kind of weird fever dream because we weren't in the States for that long last week, but it was just one thing after another. But it was great to be back in school, and back to teaching fashion and art, which is what I love doing.
“Hopefully it inspires the kids that, you know, if their teacher can do that, then what can they get up to in the future?”