Guided by NGV curators, these viewing sessions offer a rare opportunity to step behind the scenes of the Campbell-Pretty Fashion Research Collection and engage directly with NGV’s extensive holdings of fashion magazines. Participants will explore a curated selection of titles, discover the scope and significance of the archive, and gain insight into how these materials are collected, preserved and used by researchers, designers and curators.
Perfect for anyone with an interest in rare magazines, fashion or archives.
This program is part of Melbourne Art Book Fair 2026
Dr. Maria Quirk is Curator, Collections and Research, at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV). A historian of women’s and art history, she has previously held academic positions at the University of Queensland and Deakin University, and is a former State Library of Queensland research fellow. Maria’s research has previously appeared in Woman’s Art Journal, The Journal of Victorian Culture and Visual Culture in Britain. Her first monograph, Woman, Art and Money in Late Victorian and Edwardian England: The Hustle and the Scramble was published by Bloomsbury in 2019.
Charlotte Botica is an Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), specialising in Fashion and Textiles. She holds a Bachelor of Textile Design, an Associate Degree in Fashion Design and Technologies, and a Master of Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies. Botica has been with the NGV since 2020, contributing to various exhibition projects and co-curating the Kimono exhibition in 2025.