Fashination closed on 18 September 2005. For details of our current exhibitions, take a look at our what’s on page.
An exploration of the mutual fascination between art and fashion, featuring some of the most intriguing fashion photographs of the last decade alongside the designs that featured in them.
Fashination was an extraordinary multimedia project which sought to investigate the interplay of images and ideas between the worlds of fashion, art, photography and video. Exhibits included photography by Terry Richardson, Steven Meisel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, and Inez and Vinoodh; designs by Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Viktor & Rolf, and Bless; and film and performance by Yinka Shonibare, Vanessa Beecroft and Alicia Framis.
The exhibition focused on haute couture (high fashion), luxurious and often elaborate handmade garments customised specifically for the wearer. The haute couture world is glamorous, mysterious, expensive and fragile, and is dependent on the ability to both create and anticipate trends. With couture appealing to a small and extremely exclusive audience, designers are dependent on photography and film to disseminate designs and ideas. In this way, the worlds of fashion, art and commerce are inextricably linked.
Since the early 1990s, the relationships between fashion design and art have become increasingly blurred. Fashion, performance, photography and film are variously combined to make powerful social, cultural or political statements. This exhibition invited visitors to explore not only conventional art, film and photography, but also myriad forms of design, commentary and creativity, from advertising to theatre and politics to pornography.
© Steven Meisel, courtesy Simona Fantinelli
Fashination was organised by Moderna Museet, Stockholm, and curated by Salka Hallström-Bornold, Lars Nilsson, Lars Nittve and Magnus af Petersens. It made its UK debut at this museum.
