The primary exhibition devoted to exploring the cultural historical past of trend via a psychoanalytic lens is on view this fall on the Museum at FIT (MFIT) in New York Metropolis. Gown, Desires, and Need: Vogue and Psychoanalysis options almost 100 clothes from the Eighteen Eighties to at present, together with designs by Azzedine Alaïa, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Willy Chavarria, Bella Freud, John Galliano for Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Rick Owens, Olivier Rousteing for Balmain, Sonia Rykiel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeremy Scott for Moschino, Jun Takahashi of Undercover, Gianni and Donatella Versace, Viktor & Rolf, Grace Wales Bonner, Vivienne Westwood, and Yohji Yamamoto.
Open via January 4, 2026, Gown, Desires, and Need: Vogue and Psychoanalysis is the results of 5 years of analysis by Dr. Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of MFIT, who Suzy Menkes as soon as described as “the Freud of Fashion.” The primary gallery within the present traces the historic relationship between trend and psychoanalysis, starting round 1900 with Sigmund Freud’s private fashion and perspective in direction of ladies’s trend. By the Nineteen Twenties, Freudian psychoanalysis was related to sexual liberation, and within the Thirties with Surrealism. Throughout the Chilly Struggle, nonetheless, psychoanalysis was dominated by misogyny and homophobia. But the sector continued to evolve.
Left: Elsa Schiaparelli, night jacket, Spring 1939. Francesca Galloway, London, (picture © Francesca Galloway, photograph Katrina Lawson Johnston); Proper: Jean Paul Gaultier, costume, Fall 1984
The second and bigger gallery strikes away from chronology to discover psychoanalytic concepts from Freud’s and Carl Jung’s dream theories to Jacques Lacan’s mirror stage, in addition to concepts about trend as a changeable, renewable second pores and skin.
MFIT will host the Vogue and Psychoanalysis Symposium on November 14, 2025, at FIT’s Katie Murphy Amphitheatre. This free public occasion will function a number of famous psychoanalysts and trend students, in addition to designer and podcaster Bella Freud and actress Laverne Cox in dialog with Dr. Steele.
The accompanying e book, Gown, Desires, and Need: A Historical past of Vogue and Psychoanalysis (Bloomsbury Visible Arts) by Dr. Valerie Steele, can be printed in November 2025.
To be taught extra, go to fitnyc.edu/museum.
The Museum at FIT, New York Metropolis’s solely museum devoted completely to trend, holds greater than 50,000 clothes and equipment courting from the 18th century to at present. Admission is free, with hours Wednesday via Friday from midday to eight pm, and Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to five pm.
Mamado pantsuit by Bárbara Sánchez-Kane as featured in “Amantes Encontrados” for Vogue Italia, 2019. Photograph by Paola Vivas. Styling by Chino Castilla. Fashions: Emiliano and Samuel for GUERXS AGENCY MX.
Grace Wales Bonner, man’s swimsuit, Spring 2017
