Art and fashion have long been integrated in cultural history. Before the 20th century, haute couture is recognized as the fashion cannon and art taste in the aristocracy and bourgeoisie culture. However, when the third breakthrough in western art history, the transition from the European to Modern Art, happened in the 20th century, the interaction between art and fashion became more frequently than ever. This trend was intensified by mass production, ubiquitous consumption, and commercial advertisements, leading to the democratization and reproduction of fashion and art. Even nowadays, one can easily recall the sensational effect, where Andy Warhol marked his Campbell Soup Can on a paper dress and Mondrian collaged his squares on Yves Saint Laurent’s A-line dress silhouette. Western sociologists, taking Pierre Bourdieu as an example, attributed these phenomena to the rise of modernism and consumerism, indicating that both fashion and art is highly marketable among the mass audience in the “consumption society”. As time passed, fashion nowadays is bridging themselves to art by employing consumption. Art and fashion increasingly correlated with each other by leveraging their values.

Haute Couture and the luxury fashion houses’ practices have been playing very well on this game. On the one hand, they are the business professionals that label design concepts, artistic aesthetics, and craftsmanship with a simple price tag. On the other hand, each brand thrives on differentiating its identity in a unique and premium image. With the purpose of exciting public attention and generating perceived values, they aim to be trendsetters through fashion practices. Thus, art practitioners, no matter whether invited or voluntarily getting involved, become the best friends of fashion designers in order to advance their ambition. Thanks to the marketing and public relationship team of these brands, fashion exhibition, and artists’ collaborations became the two most popular methods.

Louis Vuitton sets an example of linking fashion giants with artists. Their former creative director, Marc Jacobs, showed a strong obsession for Japanese pop art and collaborated with Murakami Takashi and Yayoi Kusama many times. Departing from Andy Warhol’s depiction of the commercial world, the collaborations signaled the trend of modern pop art to be a consumer good. Moreover, Murakami’s commitment to LV went far beyond merely fitting the “superflat” flower shapes and floral vines with the LV Monolith symbol. Rather, it became an indispensable narrative element in the artist’s fine art context. In 2007, the individual exhibition ©Murakami opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, where the collaborative collections with LV served both as his retrospection and a selling point. If we leave aside the commercial nature of moving a boutique into a museum setting, what is truly noteworthy is the canonization of fashion by exploiting the art world and taking advantage of its monetary value. Louis Vuitton stepped on art to tag itself with “rich” and “luxury” image, arousing the pious consumers’ cult towards the products instead of embodied art insight. 

Nevertheless, the presence of luxury brands in museums is not always unfavorable. As art is becoming an inflated concept, a broader “curatorial turn” brought contemporary fashion curation into the art and criticism discourse when the first major exhibition of fashion debuted at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1971. The curatorial team continually researched towards fashion theory, trend analysis, and couture craftsmanship in collaborations with prestigious fashion houses for years. Most recently, their exhibition, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, traced the brand’s history back to 1947 through over 500 objects, with over 200 rare haute couture garments in a joint effort with the Dior team. V&A recognized Dior’s significant impact on shaping the design and aesthetic of the era. It is delightful to see a luxury brand’s engagement in academic and historical research of fashion, art, and curation rather than the business, market, and capital value.

The exhibition "Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams” © Wallpaper

[1]English, A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20thand 21stcenturies, 5-41 

[2]McEviley, T. “Doctor, lawyer, indian, chief.”

[3]Cohn, “The 50 Best Artist Collaborations in Fashion.”

[4]Bourdieu,Sociology in Question, 79.

[5]Vanska and Clark, Fashion curating: critical practice in the museum and beyond, 40.

[6]Bengtsen, “Fahion Curates Art: Takashi Murakami for Louise Vuitton,” 199.

[7]Murakami, Super Flat, 8-25.

[8]Vanska and Clark, Fashion curating: critical practice in the museum and beyond, 177.

[9]V&A, “Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams.”

[10]Business of Fashion, “Dior Gowns That Made Headlines Star in London's V&A Exhibition.”