Dirty Looks Desire and Decay in Fashion
London ( GB) > 25.09.2025 - 25.01.2026
Rebel against conventional beauty and take a look at the dirty side of fashion.
From ruined romantic evening gowns to faux-stained jeans, mud-splashed dresses and upcycled outfits, the fashion world has never been dirtier.
But where did this idea of getting dirty come from? Where is it going? And, what does it say about fashion's relationship to the earth and to our bodies?
Dirty Looks explores how dirt and decay have been used to defy beauty standards, and why it's going through a resurgence in young designers' work. As a counterpoint to glossy digital perfection, these artistic practices point us to a new way of thinking about a sustainable fashion future.
Featuring icons like Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Miguel Adrover and Maison Margiela, alongside emerging designers such as Elena Velez, Yuima Nakazato and IAMISIGO, this exhibition explores fashion's past, present and possible future.
The human desire to reconnect with the earth – a romantic longing or ‘nostalgia of mud’ – finds many expressions, as these pairs of rubber wellington boots owned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and London’s supermodel Kate Moss exemplify. Spending time in nature, whether on horseback or trawling through the muddy fields of Worthy Farm at Glastonbury, is often seen as a welcome antidote to our sanitised and digital lifestyles.
Fashion has long been characterised by glamorous and perfect surfaces that will not tolerate any form of ‘dirt’, defined by anthropologist Mary Douglas as ‘matter out of place’. However, over the past fifty years, forms of both real and fake dirt have infiltrated and decorated fashion, symbolising rebelliousness, romanticism and decay as well as concepts of transience, spirituality and regeneration.
Dirty Looks explores the many ways in which fashion has embraced ‘dirty’ aesthetics, from the poetic and the political to the subversive and humorous. The exhibition traces an ongoing nostalgia of mud, from ancient landscapes such as the bog to new horizons where a spiritual connection to the earth is expressed through garments. Examining the influence of decolonial attitudes and indigenous perspectives, it also demonstrates what alternative practices – from upcycled materials and repurposed deadstock to regenerated textiles and reinterpretations of natural resources – could offer the industry.
Fashion, as a deeply meaningful cultural practice of adornment, is also the third most polluting industry in the world. By taking a ‘dirty look’ at fashion, we might begin to reckon with what this says about our relationship to the earth, salvaging the connections eroded by industrialisation and colonialism.
Text - und Bildquelle : Museumswebsite Foto :© David Parry
Art Gallery
Barbican Centre
Silk Street, London
EC2Y 8DS
Groß Britannien
weitere Infos: www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2025/event/dirty-looks