When it comes to fashion, we’re living in an era where very few people understand, let alone have access to, high quality clothes. And it’s unsurprisingly. In recent years, the price of clothing has depreciated steadily as a result of everything, from the slow disappearance of skilled labour from school curriculums and the rise of fast fashion, to the outsourcing and offshoring of entire industries. And while awareness of the importance of investing in conscious clothing has deepened in the last decade, the salient truth is that most people refuse to agree that beautifully made products should come at a price and, crucially, understand why they do. But as someone who believes deeply that investing in well-made clothes has value far beyond financial, I’m more delighted than ever with London’s current offering of fashion exhibitions.
In many ways, the world of fashion still feels closed off to the public, with runway FROWs reserved for VIPs and celebrities, and four-figure price tags unattainable for most shoppers. Part of the industry’s allure has always been trading on velvet ropes, but it’s a practice that can’t survive forever. Nor should it. In order for everyone to be signing from the same sartorial hymn cheat and understand what’s needed for the fashion industry to thrive, we have an obligation to bring more people into the fold, rather than create additional barriers to entry.
This is one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with recent exhibitions like Gucci Cosmos at 180 The Strand, The Fabric of Democracy at the Fashion and Textile Museum, and RE/SISTERS: A Lens on Gender and Ecology at The Barbican, sponsored by Vestiaire Collective. The latter draws inspiration from the links between the degradation of our planet and the oppression of women through photography, film and installations. During the exhibition, I couldn’t take my eyes off a series of plastic bags and trash tangled in roots and branches titled Simyrn Gill’s Channel #1-29.
For me, these exhibitions are a visual show that’s fun for all ages, whether it’s my father-in-law who loves learning about history and war, or my 12-year-old niece and nine-year-old nephew. At Gucci Cosmos, the children would have loved the spinning revolving doors that lead you from one room to the next which symbolise Guccio Gucci’s time spent working as a bellhop at The Savoy Hotel (an important part of the brand’s beginnings making luggage). I audibly gasped when I entered the exhibition’s Cabinet of Wonders: a revolving lacquered red cabinet with doors and drawers that slowly open and close revealing memorable archival Gucci pieces (like the beaded heels from the most recent show, Ancora).
The capital is bursting at the seams with fashion exhibitions promising to delight the masses. At present, we have Gabri Chanel: Fashion Manifesto at the V&A, Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style at the Museum of London Docklands, The Missing Thread at Somerset House and Rebel: 30 Years of London Fashion at the Design Museum on our doorstep. Londoners are spoiled for choice when it comes to educating themselves about the history of the fashion industry, and seeing runway items up close for the first timer ever.
As someone who only attended their first re-see last month, I know all too well the honour of being in the room with such artistry, which is why I want everyone to experience that joy, whether they do or don’t know their Erdems from their Emilio Pucci. By standing in front of a garment that’s been painstakingly beaded and embroidered by multiple hands for weeks on end, it’s impossible not to understand, value, and view fashion industry in a new light. I want to live in a world where you can talk with a stranger about how Gucci was founded by a bellhop, or where conversations about fashion in the pub are as common as they are about football. And, I believe, fashion exhibitions to transform the narrative.
But in order for fashion to become a topic we discuss among family and friends, we need to make it accessible for all. Democratising fashion shouldn’t be about lowering prices and the exploiting workers’ labour, rather fostering a common understanding of the importance of the industry for creativity, business, and growth so that it can continue to serve future generations.
