Last week, Wes Gordon sent an array of art world-adjacent women down the runway at Carolina Herrera’s fall 2026 show. The painter Amy Sherald, photographer Ming Smith, and sculptor Rachel Feinstein, among others, were asked to put down their paintbrushes and cameras and represent for the community of ladies shaping the modern landscape of art. It was hardly the first time art and fashion have converged on a major stage, and it won’t be the last. On Wednesday, February 18, the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology opened Art x Fashion, a new exhibition exploring the intersection between the two disciplines.
“It’s been in the air for a very long time,” says the show’s curator, Dr. Elizabeth Way (that might be the understatement of the century). After all, one only needs to look toward Rachel Scott, who was heavily inspired by Cuban artist Wifredo Lam for her most recent collection. There was also Maria Grazia Chiuri’s frequent use of art and artists in her work at Dior, Jonathan Anderson’s championing of the Loewe Craft Prize, and, of course, the upcoming Met Gala and Costume Institute exhibition, Costume Art.
“You can see that it has a very, very long history, but it continues to be strong and contemporary,” Way says. Art x Fashion illustrates that ongoing relationship, featuring 140 garments, accessories, textiles, and visual art pieces ranging from the late 18th century to the present. With the help of MFIT’s vast archive, Way presents fashion and art as parallel creative forces. Initially, inspiration may have stemmed from the deceptively simple question, “Is fashion art?” but Way’s research extends far beyond that query. The point of the show is more about exploring the connections between the two creative forms, as opposed to attempting to define anything.
Art x Fashion begins with a 19th-century salon-style gallery, laid out in chronological order to track the roots of art history and scholarship. Starting in the 1800s, when genre painters would amass historical fashion collections to dress their models, the story continues to postmodernism in the ’80s, when the lines between pop culture, fashion, and art truly began to blur.
The Campbell’s Company, “The Souper Dress,” 1966-1967.
©The Museum at FIT
“Fashion did not follow fine art in its aesthetics, but these two mediums grew out of the same cultural zeitgeist,” Way says. Garments hung up alongside fine art pieces from the rococo, romanticism, and art nouveau periods prove the two forms expanded simultaneously, reacting to the push and pull of the outside world and each other.
Art x Fashion admittedly focuses on a euro-centric view of fashion and art, limited by space and time (breaking down the worldwide history of art and fashion is an almost impossible task) as well as resources (MFIT’s archive is similarly euro-American). But Way cites global influences, specifically when discussing embroidery, an art form that came to Europe by way of Asia.
There’s a part of the exhibition that examines innovative design. Way lays out three garments that “challenge what we accept as garments, as clothing, and how they interact with the body”: A deconstructed suit by Agi & Sam; a bulbous, patchwork look from Comme des Garçons; and Iris Van Herpen’s acrylic glass splash dress. The final piece, the gown by Van Herpen, reads more sculpture than style when presented on the headless mannequin, the perfect choice to encapsulate the exhibition’s thesis.
Way explores cultural impact in the next section, turning specifically at Dior’s New Look and, conversely, punk style. The exhibition presents two archetypes of each contrasting style and their respective effects on the world of fashion. “One, emanating couture, trickled down, and one came from the streets and trickled up.”
Iris Van Herpen, “Splash” dress, acrylic glass, 2013.
©The Museum at FIT
The show also looks at famous artists who doubled as designers (Salvador Dalí designing ties, Pablo Picasso creating home textiles) and designers as artists (the increased popularity of art school, where would-be designers study next to artists of various mediums and invariably internalize their practices).
The exhibition concludes with a look at fashion’s engagement with art in three increasingly complex ways. First, reproduction, focusing on brands like Moschino, Versace, and most recently, Grace Wales Bonner, who sold clothing featuring famous works to the public. While still out-pricing some, this practice allows your average person to own an Andy Warhol or a Kerry James Marshall, and to even wear it on their backs. We also see designers who have interpreted fine art, resulting in some of the most eye-catching pieces of the show. There’s Alexander McQueen’s Givenchy dress, inspired by the 1833 Paul Delaroche painting, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, and Yves Saint Laurent’s Mondrian shift, among others.
In the final space, Way presents what is likely the most obvious connection between art and fashion now: the collaboration. Of course, there is Louis Vuitton’s Murakami Speedy, as the French house—under former creative director Marc Jacobs and beyond—has long set the tone for how luxury brands can both work with and support artists and the art world. Way also allows lesser-known pieces to also shine in this section, like a tunic dress from Thebe Magugu featuring work created by graphic designer Phathu Nembilwi.
Art x Fashion could have filled up ten galleries, likely more. The topic is vast and ever-changing, but still relevant, as proven by the most recent New York Fashion Week art-adjacent moments. For Way, the MFIT archive—with just one acquisition and a handful of loans—acted as her guide for exploration. “It helped put a cap on it,” she says of the archival parameters. Speaking of, there’s a breathtaking satin, hand-pleated cap, on view at Art x Fashion. When you see it, you’ll have no problem agreeing it most definitely is both art and fashion.
Art x Fashion is on display at the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology from February 18 to April 19. 2026.
