The rise and rise of the fashion exhibition
Shows about designers are no longer just accepted in museums. In many places, they've become the main attraction. Why?
By Ane Cornelia Pade
What was the last exhibition you saw at a large museum? Was it about fashion? There’s a good chance the answer is yes. But that was not always the case. Public museums have been around since the 18th century, and for most of their history, textile departments were treated as secondary, staffed by curators (mostly women) whose work was often dismissed as frivolous. Speak to a textile curator today, and many will tell you about the not-so-distant past, when their job was considered best suited to women with a knack for ironing. Now, fashion has moved to the centre stage of museum programming, attracting far more visitors than traditional exhibitions of painting and sculpture. As a result, blockbuster fashion exhibitions are significantly reshaping museums, raising questions about their relationship to history and sponsorships, and about their role in public education. In today’s cutthroat attention economy, fashion exhibitions highlight the contradiction that plagues the contemporary museum: institutions are expected to remain public, scholarly, accessible, inclusive, and conservation-led, while also behaving like competitive cultural businesses.