To the layperson, high-fashion shows can be a source of confusion. Why would anyone spend thousands on a dress constructed entirely of razor blades, or a pair of decrepit shoes that have been deliberately sullied or even torched? Well, because sometimes creating unwearable garments is actually the point, thank you very much. And that’s exactly what the Barbican’s latest fashion exhibition illustrates.
From the controversial £1,400 Balenciaga destroyed trainers, to Jordanluca’s pee-soaked jeans, and dresses that have been pulled out of bogs, Dirty Looks peers at the muckier side of fashion design. Don’t expect immaculate gowns displayed solemnly in glass cases. This isn’t a historical look at haute couture, or a glossy advert for a fashion house concealed inside a gallery show. The exhibition, featuring more than 120 garments from designers including Maison Margiela, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood and Issey Miyake, takes a clever thematic approach to the philosophy of dirt within fashion, showing how ideas around industrialisation, colonisation, the body, and waste, can be illustrated on the runway.
One particularly icky room is dedicated to bodily fluids, showing artificially sweat and period-stained garb, others to food stains, pieces made with rubbish and to trompe l’oeil faux-grimy clothing.Stand-out pieces include a torn and muddy lace dress from Alexander McQueen’s controversial ‘Highland Rape’ collection, a creepy Miss Havisham-esque Comme des Garçons anti-wedding gown, and Hussein Chalayan’s discoloured tea dresses, encrusted in mud after being buried underground. One dress by bio-designer Alice Potts sparkles as if covered with diamonds. Up close, you see it is crystals made from the designer’s own sweat.
It will gross you out, make you think and challenge your perception of high fashion
While the clothes do most of the talking, the often high-brow ideas behind the designs are communicated through easy-to-understand gallery texts. There is plenty to chew on, and alongside the deeper philosophical ideas (such as the 19th-century anti-industrial credo the ‘nostalgia of mud’) is also a fascinating insight into how the clothes were made, with processes like submersion in water, underground burial, and natural dyeing highlighted.
Occasionally Dirty Looks loses its context. The humorous JW Anderson pigeon clutch is a good addition, but its place in the exhibition – a section dedicated to garments made with found items – feels random, as if the curators didn’t know where to place it. However, the odd mis-step doesn’t make the show any less compelling. It’s also probably the only chance regular folk will get to see the stunning work of designers of the moment, like Dilara Findikoglu, up close.
Dirty Looks will gross you out, make you think and challenge your perception of high fashion. Not glitzy or shiny, Dirty Looks is a raw, honest and edgy display that should be enough to convince any fashion novice that runways aren’t about creating something pretty and wearable, they’re about art.
