On 9th March 2020 Rosie Goldsmith interviewed Bernardine Evaristo in front of a packed audience at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was a joyful celebration of the 2019 Booker Prize winner and of her novel Girl Woman Other.
Rosie’s Fashion & Fiction series is utterly original and began exactly five years ago at the V&A with Margaret Atwood, who shared the Booker Prize with Bernardine in 2019. The focus of the series is how clothes, hair, shoes, accessories and fashion are reflected in fiction and how they influence the profiled authors. Bernardine Evaristo writes vividly about her characters’ appearance and is herself a confident and conscious dresser. During the hour-long event, and for the first time publicly, she shared personal photos of her young life (and fashion choices!) growing up in Woolwich, the daughter of Nigerian-British parents, and of her early career as a theatre actor and director, feminist and black activist. Rosie and Bernardine went on to discuss the scandal of the Windrush generation, which arrived in Britain in 1948, proudly wearing wonderfully tailored clothes, and positively influencing British style ever since. The novel Girl, Woman, Other is an inspiration to many readers, and during this special V&A event, Harriet Bennett, a student at the London College of Fashion, presented the audience with her creative interpretation of Bernardine’s characters.
Fashion & Fiction with Bernardine Evaristo was one of the last major public events in London before the Corona Virus forced the closure of the Victoria and Albert Museum and of all our great public arts institutions.
We’d like to present you with this free video of the event, filmed by Mihai Andrei of London Video Stories, so that we can all celebrate the Very Amazing V&A and Bernardine Evaristo.