Barbican opens first major fashion exhibition in nearly a decade

London’s Barbican has opened its first large-scale fashion exhibition in eight years, inspired by the “rebellious, playful and regenerative potentials of dirt and decay,” as it looks to reaffirm its commitment to fashion within its visual art programming, building on the success of exhibitions such as ‘The House of Viktor & Rolf’ in 2008 and Jean Paul Gaultier in 2014.

The ‘Dirty Looks’ exhibition marks the beginning of a new era of fashion programming for the art event space, being led by Barbican Art Gallery curator Karen Van Godtsenhoven, with a focus on “fashion as an interdisciplinary and ground breaking artistic practice,” as well as reflecting the changing landscape of fashion today and showcasing futures in which fashion can be harnessed “as a positive creative force for its makers, wearers, lovers and our natural environment”.

“Dirty Looks marks the return of fashion to the Barbican,” said Shanay Jhaveri, head of visual arts at the Barbican, at the press preview. “We haven’t had a show here that explores fashion as artistic practice and how fashion relates to our lives in nearly a decade, and it also returns the visual arts programme to its interdisciplinary route.”

The Barbican notes that the ‘Dirty Looks’ exhibition not only recognises fashion as a form of artistic expression, but also “as a lens through which to examine cultural, environmental and political urgencies,” while exploring fashion’s enduring fascination with ‘dirty’ aesthetics, from urine-stained jeans by JordanLuca to Robert Win’s wine-stained evening gowns, faux-filthy trainers from Balenciaga, and even clothing that has been submerged in the bog.

The exhibition, open until January 25, 2026, brings together around 120 looks from more than 60 designers, including well-known fashion houses and designers, such as Hussein Chalayan, Alexander McQueen, Vivienne Westwood, Maison Margiela, and Issey Miyake, as well as new commissions by a new generation of emerging designers, including Paolo Carzana, Alice Potts, Michaela Stark, Solitude Studios, Elena Velez and Yaz XL, exploring how contemporary clothing has harnessed rebellion through dirt.

Jhaveri added: “This exhibition brings together a remarkable breadth of global designers who are radically reshaping what fashion can mean and do today. With its focus on decay, renewal and the aesthetics of imperfection, Dirty Looks invites us to reconsider beauty, value and the regenerative power of making in a world in flux.”

Inside ‘Dirty Looks’ exhibition at the Barbican

The Barbican’s ‘Dirty Looks’ considers how fashion has embraced its "dirty” aesthetic, from tracing the nostalgia of mud to distressed romantic gowns elevated with rips and stains, and even looks artificially stained with blood, sweat and urine, all while also asking “what does this desire for decay tell us about ourselves and the state of fashion?”.

This exhibition is more than just pulling pieces from the archive; the Barbican is considering the subversive potential of fashion that confronts us with the “dirtiness” of our own bodies, as well as fashion’s own waste streams. It also examines the influence of colonial attitudes and indigenous perspectives, while demonstrating alternative practices, such as upcycled materials and regenerated textiles, to radical, repurposed deadstock.

Highlights include an installation of buried, oxidised garments by Hussein Chalayan, including looks first presented in his 1993 graduate collection ‘The Tangent Flows,’ which the designer buried and exhumed in a notion of ‘future archaeology’ to symbolise the life cycles of fashion, whilst poetically reflecting on time, transience, rebirth and regeneration.

The exhibition then moves onto the Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren’s autumn/winter 1983 post-punk Nostalgia of Mud, alongside looks from Issey Miyake, Alexander McQueen, Dilara Findikoglu, and Spanish designer Miguel Adrover, whose gown was hand-painted with birds and then buried along the bank of the river Nike for two weeks to gain a sandy patina.

The next room was dedicated to ‘Romantic Ruins,’ with looks from looks exploring the idea of the “beautiful yet decaying”, highlighting examples of an aesthetic of ruin, from a floral lace dress torn and encrusted with mud from Alexander McQueen’s controversial ‘Highland Rape’ collection from autumn/winter 1995 to a voluminous dress by Viktor&Rolf crafted from heavily destressed wool covered in silver sequins.

Other highlights included “lived-in” garments, such as the controversial Dior by John Galliano collection from spring/summer 2000 which romanticised poverty as it drew inspiration homeless people sleeping along the Seine, while another look by Galliano for Maison Margiela from SS24 showcased a cotton skirt pleated to resemble corrugated cardboard, and Vivienne Westwood’s SS91 collection highlighted slashed techniques to reveal the luxurious while shirts worn below.

There was also a room dedicated to “stains as ornaments” with pieces purposely stained with paint, mud, chemical treatments, as well as wine, lipstick and burns from ironing, while another examined the taboo subject of bodily fluids with pee-stained jeans, and garments by Di Petsa treated to resemble menstrual, lactation and urine stains.

The exhibit also featured a site-specific installation of three looks from Ma Ke’s handmade collection Wuyong/The Earth (2006-07), transforming discarded materials including wood, linen, plastic and tarpaulin using ancient crafts practiced by women in China’s rural regions, as well as a newly commissioned film and display by American designer Elena Velez featuring works from her spring/summer 2024 collection The Longhouse, which culminated in a mud-wrestle finale.

Barbican commissions emerging designers as part of ‘Dirty Looks’ exhibition

Downstairs, the exhibition places a spotlight on a new generation of emerging designers with the Barbican commissioning special works to highlight dirt and decay through “artistic experimentation”. Highlights included the work of bio-designer Alice Potts who explores the notions of shame and propriety around body fluids by utilising her own sweat to stain a gorgeous gown and Danish brand Solitude Studios, who used cloth submerged in bogs in their collections, referencing the use of Denmark’s bogs as a site of fertility and good luck offerings in the Iron Age, while London Fashion Week favourite Paolo Carzana showcases a three-season narrative Trilogy of Hope (2024-25), featuring handcrafted, naturally dyed garments made from organic and repurposed materials.

The backdrop of the exhibition was also visually arresting, embracing the theme of dirt and decay with a set design by Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck, known for its performative and cutting-edge designs for fashion shows and theatre. The set design goes from a gradual decay in the upstairs galleries, with rooms intentionally and artificially cracked and crumbling plaster walls and perfectly tiled room deliberately dirtied up and sculpted as leaking carnage, while the downstairs, designated to the emerging designers is draped in toile, the source of fashion creation, at first glance the fabric looks eye pleasing and embracing, but look closely and the drape “has been overly done to create an over accumulating space that is in friction and almost becomes unpleasant again”. After the exhibition, organisers add that the toile will be donated to Central Saint Martin students.

Commenting on the exhibition, Van Godtsenhoven, added: “What triggered the show was a visit to the graduation show at Central St Martins, where we saw that each of the young designers, in their own way, were grappling with these ideas about the passing of time and decay, but also ideas of regeneration and rebirth, because they are coming to a fashion industry in the world at large, where there is already a lot of existing fashion, and ideas of dirt or waste in fashion are omnipresent.

“I think this metaphor of dirt, is more than just a visual aesthetic in some of the garments, it is also a way for designers, such as the nostalgia of mud in the early 1980s with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, to showcase a joyful resistance to the crisis of their times, the austerity politics in the 1980s, while ‘The Tangent Flow’ collection by Hussein Chalayan offers a poetic and deeply philosophical burial of garments.

“I think dirt is actually a metaphor for renewal of artistic practice in fashion, and as Miguel Adrover says, one of the designers featured in the show, dirt is not a trend. It means dignity as it symbolises a connection to our shared humanity and our human emotions.”