Teacher's Alzheimer's-inspired designs to feature in Met Gala exhibition

A Midlothian art and fashion teacher has said she is "still in shock" after her graduate collection inspired by Alzheimer's disease caught the eyes of the Met Gala curators.

Nadia Pinkney, who teaches at St David's High School in Dalkeith, created a collection for her fashion degree at Heriot Watt University in 2016.

Having left the fashion industry in 2021, Nadia pulled the pieces out of a box in her classroom and has now travelled to New York to see her work alongside some of the world's most famous designs.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art's new exhibition - Costume Art - will open to the public on 10 May.

"It's been a whirlwind that my Remember Me Knot collection has made the news again," Nadia told BBC Scotland News.

When she first saw the message on LinkedIn - sent on behalf of head curator of the Costume Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Andrew Bolton - she thought it was a scam.

She said the curation team had been looking for fashion pieces about the ageing body and searched for fashion inspired by cognitive disorders online, which brought up previous articles about her work.

"I teach my pupils about Andrew Bolton and the Met Gala and now he is a contact in my phone, which is very strange for an art teacher," she said.

This year's theme is Costume Art, which will see 400 outfits and objects spanning 5,000 years go on display.

Nadia said it is inspired by parts of the body that are not always recognised or celebrated - such as the ageing body and the pregnant body - and different standards of beauty.

Both Nadia's great-grandmother and grandmother had Alzheimer's disease, which inspired her graduate collection as she wanted to learn more about the disease she grew up surrounded by but didn't fully understand.

"I worked with researchers and doctors, who gave me brain scans that I used to create the print," she said.

"When Alzheimer's enters the brain, it tangles the neurons so there were a lot of knots and tangled materials used within the six pieces.

"The only colour that I used was red because not only was it my great granny's favourite colour but it represents the areas of the brain that are still active in PET scans."

She told BBC Radio Scotland's Drivetime programme she had kept the collection at her grandfather' house but when he died three years ago, she cleared a lot of it out.

"Space was limited and I thought I didn't need it all anymore," she said.

What she kept was then stored in a box in her art classroom but one of the pieces on show at the exhibition had not made the cut so she remade it from scratch earlier this year.

Her collection has been paired with a lithograph by Dutch-American artist Willem de Kooning, whose own experience with Alzheimer's affected his late-career work.

Nadia and her mum are now set to attend the opening event of the exhibition and the new Conde M. Nast galleries on Thursday evening.

But with fashion at the forefront of the event, she had some big decisions to make about what to wear.

"The invitation said 'festive attire' but I didn't know what that meant," Nadia sent.

She said she had to ask ChatGPT for advice on what to wear and has settled on a black trouser suit with silver details, while her mum has opted for a similar style in red.

"AI said it meant black tie but with personality so I hope we fit in."