1920’s Festival of Museums, Dundee.

The Roaring ’20s are way over, but thanks to The McManus Art Gallery & Museum we can celebrate them forever. Last Saturday saw Dundee head into a time warp at the Festival of Museums, where we were taken back to a time of music, cinema, journalism and of course fashion. Way before Dundee became the city of innovation and design, the 20’s saw the city lead the way in more than just comic books so of course this only meant one thing. ROAD TRIP!

There’s nothing I love more than a good dress up and 1920’s style has to be one of my favourites. In many ways, the flappers of the 1920s paved the way for our modern obsession with style. It’s not just that flapper fashion began appearing around the same time as compact makeup (though that surely had a lot to do with it). The time was ripe for women to begin using fashion and makeup not modestly but to make a statement. Flapper beauty tricks have stuck with us over the decades — and, it seems that once again women are celebrating the power that comes with a short crop and a bold lip – including our Pops! We were super excited to put our own spin on the dress code, I even donned one of Dundee’s finest designers, Hayley Scanlan, in her modern take on the drop waist dress with added texture loving style.

Being a huge lover of cartoons and all their style inspiration, it was amazing to see so much dedication to Dundee’s own DC Thomson. Not only did we get to explore within the titles from Dandy to Beano, but also have a peak into the next generation of artists living and working within the city. We were also told the story of Dundee’s first ever journo #GirlBoss’s, Marie Imandt and Bessie Maxwell, both journalists with DC Thomson back in 1894. These were the first female journalists of their time, who were sent off in fact-finding missions to investigate the lives of women around the world, sending back regular reports The Courier and The Weekly News. Talk about bad ass, am I right?

Perfectly bringing Dundee’s history to life, The McManus Gallery created a programme of music, stories, costume and games to celebrate the city’s long lived history of innovation and design.  Apart from watching Pop’s being slightly afraid of the life size Oor Wullie, getting up close and personal with some archive pieces from the costume collection had to be a personal highlight of the evening. I feel like vintage clothes speak to me and something about being in the presence of such impeccable pieces from the early 20’s gave me the fashion chills.

Myself, Honeypop and Wardrobe Conversations

The night was bustling, with bloggers, photographers and locals alike, all coming to celebrate the city’s achievements over the last century. If you were lucky, you would have squeezed into the popular learning rooms to watch  ‘Around Dundee in the 1930s’ a short film featuring footage of the docks, Baxter Park and the flying boat Maia and seaplane Mercury that was launched on the Tay in 1938.  I only caught a little slot but it was great to see what young Dundonians used to get up to in their spare time. Honey Pop and I almost felt like we were letting the team down as after all that tail feather shaking, we were ready to head back for some Netflix and chill at our weekend apartment in the Urban Quarters.

Offering something a little different to your city break, Urban Quarters was such a comfortable and stylish place to stay while in Dundee. With four oh so stylish 2 bed apartments in the heart of South Tay Street in Dundee’s centre (across from the DCA, where I would highly recommend!) each room has been individually styled with all your mod cons from Nespresso to your Smart TV. After our 20’s style celebrations that night, all we wanted to do is get cosy with Netflix and order Deliveroo. Could we be more millennial if we tried? After a delicious Project Pizza and a documentary, it was off to sleep in what we both only described as bed shaped clouds. It was the first time I had actually been to Dundee on a Sunny day and the Ubran Quarters certainly made it feel like a home away from home. You can even get 25% off your stay with discount code FY25!  Have you ever thought about a weekend in Dundee?

With thanks to Festival of Museums, Ignite Dundee, McManus Gallery and Urban Quarters.