Luxury brands are increasingly turning to fashion exhibitions to open up their archives to the public, while elevating the status of their products to art
A blue and red Kelly bag mounted on a mini rocking horse elicited many ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ as viewers took turns sliding the digital cursor back and forth to rock the horse. When we came upon Hurricane, a storm-resistant pipe from 1956 built to weather tempests during sea voyages, a fashion editor chuckled and simply remarked, “Important priorities”.
These artifacts, although housed behind glass cases, were not a part of some museum. We were at the press preview for ‘Hermès Heritage In Motion’, a touring exhibition that ‘showcases objects that carry within them the desire to take off, to go elsewhere and roam’. During its pitstop in Mumbai, viewers got to soak in the storied house’s history, from its origin as a saddle maker to the present day, where Hermès has many iconic pieces to its name.
Luxury fashion exhibitions are slowly becoming a fixture in fashion and art capitals all over the world. The ‘Gucci Garden’ in Florence, conceived by Alessandro Michele all the way back in 2011, set the tone for canonising garments and accessories like literal pieces of art. Louis Vuitton’s interactive ‘See LV’ (featured in our December 2022 issue), was inaugurated in Wuhan in 2020 before travelling to three other locations, and finally popping up at the First Fleet Park in Sydney in December 2022. Similarly, ‘Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse’ made its debut at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from April to October 2022 before taking up station at National Gallery of Victoria in December 2022. There’s also ‘Thierry Mugler: Couturissime’, housed in the Brooklyn Museum, and is the first retrospective to explore the universe of the French designer. It was opened to the public in November 2022 after a star-studded premiere.
STORIED PAST
The traditional retail format of brick-and-mortar stores lives on, especially since shoppers are seeking tactile experiences after being restricted to online shopping over the past two years. As brands compete for eyeballs and wallets, building experiences beyond just the exchange of goods for money takes on a great deal of significance. And no one has more cachet and resources to put together such experiences than luxury fashion houses. Heritage luxury retailers often have a plethora of hero pieces, produced under different creative directors and sold over the years to adoring fans.
For instance, at ‘See LV’, there’s a wall dedicated to Louis Vuitton’s It-Bags: From the Steamer Trunk to the Speedy, Noe to Twist, these are all pieces that formed a defining moment in the house’s history. More such recent creations include pieces from Kim Jones’ collaboration with Supreme in 2017, which is considered to be the defining moment when streetwear entered the realm of luxury.
Exhibitions are a great way to display these expansive archives, reinforcing the brand’s influence within recent consumer history while elevating its products to the mantle of art, worthy of being showcased and preserved for viewing.
But you don’t have to be a consumer of luxury fashion to visit these exhibitions, and that’s the beauty of it. The museum setting might make the items look less accessible, but at the same time, the absence of a prohibitive price tag and the pressure to make an immediate purchase might also help in making luxury products less alienating. Here, the focus is on the craftsmanship, the storytelling, the legacy; adding to cart takes a backseat. An exhibition presents a concise visual distillation of the house’s values, as opposed to, say, a flagship store.
CURATORIAL LENS
Another objective of these exhibitions is to demystify the designers’ creative process and elaborate on the artistic source material they drew from. In fact, for ‘Couturissime’, which first opened at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art in 2019, Thierry Mugler himself worked closely with curator Thierry-Maxime Loriot to bring the exhibition to life, ensuring everyone has the chance to understand his prolific oeuvre. After his passing in January 2022, the show at the Brooklyn Museum was the first to open as a retrospective. The exhibits include many never-seen-before looks, avant-garde accessories, multimedia displays, along with a special section dedicated to Mugler fragrances, centred around his trailblazing scent, ‘Angel’.
‘Curated’ is a term that has fallen into overuse in premium retail contexts, but in an exhibition setting, pieces are curated in the most original sense of the word. Detailed notes accompanying exhibits, compiled by professional curators, provide credible information through which viewers can not just visually but also intellectually absorb complex designs. ‘Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse’ showcases over 120 garments and accessories designed by the legendary creative, alongside more than 80 artworks that help foster viewers’ understanding of the interdisciplinary influences that defined his collections: ‘The exhibition reveals common themes and visual reference points that connect his practice with that of artists and designers throughout history.’
CIRCLE YOUR CALENDAR
2023 is a great year for fashion exhibitions, in case you fancy visiting one.
If you find yourself in Paris, make your way to ‘LV DREAM’, an immersive exhibition by Louis Vuitton celebrating 160 years of artistic collaborations that have formed the house’s zeitgeist-defining energy.
‘Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse’ is also open to visitors at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.
‘Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams’ is now showing in Tokyo, where Monsieur Dior’s ties with Japanese culture are brought to the forefront, alongside artistic influences and archival documents that have never been open to the public before.
‘Andy Warhol: The Textiles’ will be up at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in London from March onwards, showcasing 35 of Warhol’s textile patterns and fun objets d’art.
Finally, on the label’s 15th anniversary come November 2023, Iris Van Herpen’s otherworldly, avant-garde body of work will be celebrated at Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris.
