Is it just fashion?  Just a fashion? In addition to exhibitions with broad appeal that are dedicated to paying homage to fashion icons or depict fashion as a mode of representing power or the avant-garde, recent exhibition projects have shown a variety of approaches that go beyond stylization. More and more frequently, sociopolitical issues are negotiated through fashion in exhibitions: Clothing is increasingly being addressed in its socio-cultural diversity, fashion (production) is being questioned as a focal point of global inequality or taken as a gesture of subversion as a point of reference for museum debate. Based on this and looking back at pioneering museum clothing shows, we ask about the motifs, potentials and effects of a critical approach to fashion in exhibitions. Which fashion finds its way into the museum and why? What themes are opened up through fashion, what narratives can be negotiated? What possibilities of exhibiting and communicating are available, beyond stylization and myth-making? How do conservational intentions correlate with content-related intentions? What scenographies are created in discursive fashion exhibitions? And – last but not least – what can we learn from fashion?

Event coordination

Johanna Schwab Artist and curator, Berlin (DE) 

Karoline Boehm Management team Museumsakademie, Graz (AT) 

With

Aïcha Abbadi Fashion artist, Berlin (DE)

Imen Bousnina Fashion designer, creative director at Salam Oida and co-curator Muslim*Contemporary, Vienna (AT)

Kathrin Pallestrang Curator, Textile and Clothing Collection, Volkskundemuseum Vienna (AT)

Magdalena Puchberger Curator and Editor ÖZV,  Volkskundemuseum Vienna (AT)

Maria Raid Research Associate Textile and Clothing Collection, Provenance Research, Volkskundemuseum Vienna (AT)

Lara Steinhäußer Curator, Collection of Textiles and Carpets, MAK Vienna (DE)

Monica Titton Sociologist, fashion theorist and cultural critic, University of Applied Arts Vienna (AT)

Laura Wagner Mediation and Outreach, MAK Vienna (AT)