Fashion Exhibitions
Doing some research - what are the coolest fashion exhibitions you’ve been to or heard about? Thinking of different, engaging ways to showcase pieces
19 Replies
I don't remember the exact name, but the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver had a stellar exhibit circa ~2016 about oldhead Japanese designers - I believe it was Rei Kawakubo, Kansai Yamamoto, Yohji Yamamoto, and Issey Miyake.
yeah actually here it is
Shock Wave | Denver Art Museum
Shock Wave: Japanese Fashion Design, 1980s–90s, shows work by Japanese designers who started a fashion revolution in Paris. The exhibition features 70 looks by powerhouse designers Issey Miyake, Kenzo Takada, Kansai Yamamoto, Yohji Yamamoto, Comme des Garçons, and Junya Watanabe, whose impact on fashion still resonates today.
The Viv one at the V&A from about 2004/2005 was great and probably the first "fashion" thing I saw. It might stick in my mind for the nostalgia but worth checking out.
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty also at the V&A circa 2015.
being the only fashion exhibition i’ve been to, the traveling “dior: from paris to the world” show was incredible. sooooo much archival haute couture on display. loved every second of it
but ironically what stuck with me more on that visit to the DMA was something outside the scope of the special exhibition
man it sucks i had to pull these out from so deep in my camera roll the quality is ass on some of these and i didn’t get to check
Visiting some friends for halloween i convinced them to go to the ann ray alexander mcqueen exhibit. It was really exceptional.
there’s some really fun silhouettes in there
I really loved the McQueen exhibit I've been to
Mind mythos muse was so cool, it really was all encompassing
One of the runways was on a lit up floor and the gallery recreated it with the music and floors
I really appreciated the work the gallery put in to make it more than just clothes on mannequins
I'm a fashion exhibition hater because I think everything really needs to be worn by a real person preferably in motion. That being said Iris Van Herpen exhibit in Paris was cool, but would not have been as cool without the displays showing videos of the pieces on runway
I have rarely seen the Met do a good one tbh. The last one I liked was the China one in like 2016 or something and only because one giant wall was just projecting all the cheongsams Maggie Cheung wore in In the Mood for Love
I loved the Met's Rei Kawakubo exhibit around 2017ish
There was also an exhibit highlighting African designers at Brooklyn Museum a couple years back that was pretty cool, put me onto a bunch of awesome designers like Bubu Ogisi, Mmuso Maxwell and Imane Ayissi
Thanks to everyone for chiming in - I read through all the thoughts and did some experimentation of my own
Stay tuned! 🤞
I saw this a few years ago. It was a really good show.
If it’s useful, the worst fashion exhibition I’ve ever seen was the De Young’s “Fashioning San Francisco” since it had basically nothing to say about anything it was supposed to be about, it was just a collection of clothes worn by rich San Franciscans of the past. There wasn’t even explanatory text to say who they were or why their clothing mattered—it would have been cool to see photos of the original owners wearing the clothes. A lot of the mannequins also very obviously had fitting issues and the clothes hung wrong as a result.