{"id":9068,"date":"2025-10-29T14:12:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp26.cmswebdeveloper.com\/asian-news\/the-barbican-presents-dirty-looks-desire-and-decay-in-fashion\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T14:12:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T14:12:00","slug":"the-barbican-presents-dirty-looks-desire-and-decay-in-fashion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp26.cmswebdeveloper.com\/asian-news\/the-barbican-presents-dirty-looks-desire-and-decay-in-fashion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Barbican presents Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From scuffed trainers to \u2018bogcore\u2019 and dresses buried underground, contemporary fashion has long embraced its dirty side. But what does this desire for decay tell us about ourselves and the state of fashion?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening in September 2025, the Barbican presents Dirty Looks: Desire and Decay in Fashion<\/strong>, <\/em>an adventurous new exhibition exploring how contemporary fashion has harnessed the rebellious, romantic and regenerative potentials of dirt and decay. Uniting over 60 iconic fashion houses and emerging designers from across Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, this major exhibition traces fashion\u2019s enduring fascination with \u2018dirty\u2019 aesthetics \u2013 from their emergence in the West as symbols of transgression and rebellion, to their evolution into radical forms of craft that question global consumption habits and redefine ideas of modernity, beauty and luxury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First seen on the runway in the 1980s and championed by designers like Vivienne Westwood<\/strong> and Malcolm McLaren<\/strong>, the aesthetics of mud emerged as a subversive challenge to traditional notions of luxury, class and refinement. Around the same time, the work of Issey Miyake<\/strong>, Rei Kawakubo <\/strong>and Yohji Yamamoto<\/strong> introduced challenges to Western notions of beauty and perfection, instead embracing aesthetics which denoted principles of transience, patina and humility, linked to wabi-sabi philosophies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1993, Hussein Chalayan<\/strong>\u2019s influential graduate collection The Tangent Flows <\/em>featured garments buried with iron filings in his friend\u2019s London backyard. The rusted dresses expanded the notion of garments as living, organic beings which, like humans, are of the earth and return to the earth in a cycle of ruination and renewal. Today, while distressed clothing no longer carries the same shock factor, a new generation of emerging designers continues to revisit ideas of dirt and decay for their symbolic power \u2013 using them as tools to visualise renewal, resistance and new desirable futures for fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bringing together over a hundred looks from the past half-century, Dirty Looks <\/em>considers the multifarious ways in which these ideas continue to re-surface, from a preoccupation with landscapes such as the bog, and the obsession with trompe l\u2019oeil ruination and decay, to a new, more spiritual connection to the soil. Taking a broad view of what we label as dirt, the exhibition considers the subversive potential of fashion that confronts us with the \u201cdirtiness\u201d of our own bodies, as well as fashion\u2019s own waste streams. Examining the influence of colonial attitudes and celebrating indigenous perspectives from a variety of places, it also demonstrates what alternative practices \u2013 from upcycled materials and regenerated textiles to radical, repurposed deadstock \u2013 could offer the industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grouped thematically, these concepts are expanded upon by a series of designer highlights in the upper galleries and original commissions by a new generation of emerging designers in the lower galleries. These emerging designers \u2013 including Paolo Carzana<\/strong>, Alice Potts<\/strong>, Michaela Stark<\/strong>, Solitude Studios<\/strong>, Elena Velez<\/strong> and Yaz XL <\/strong>\u2013 seek not only to reflect the deepening crises of our time \u2013 including environmental degradation \u2013 but also to visualise a paradise regained through practices related to folklore, neo-paganism and a celebration of queer and sex-positive communities. At the forefront of artistic experimentation, they touch the transient, romantic and modern qualities at the heart of fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition design sees the distinctive spaces of the Barbican Art Gallery transformed by Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck<\/strong> \u2013 known for its performative and cutting-edge designs for fashion shows and theatre \u2013 in a radical reimagining of the ways in which fashion is displayed. Drawing from fashion\u2019s obsession with the illusion of wear and decay, the design will create a tension between the smooth, white spaces of the gallery and intentionally \u2018destroyed\u2019 surface treatments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shanay Jhaveri, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican<\/strong>, said: \u201cDirty Looks signals the Barbican\u2019s bold return to fashion as a vital strand of our visual arts programming \u2013 one that recognises fashion not only as a form of artistic expression, but also as a lens through which to examine cultural, environmental and political urgencies. This exhibition brings together a remarkable breadth of global designers who are radically reshaping what fashion can mean and do today. With its focus on decay, renewal and the aesthetics of imperfection, <\/em>Dirty Looks invites us to reconsider beauty, value and the regenerative power of making in a world in flux<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Highlights of the exhibition include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n