When Fashion Brands Curate Better Than Museums
And the art world is too stunned to speak.
There was a time when “art” happened in places with names like Kunsthalle, Palais de Tokyo, or MoMA.
Now? It’s happening in boutiques.
You walk into a Louis Vuitton store and there’s a Kusama installation.
Chanel’s funding retrospectives.
Dior’s sponsoring entire pavilions.
Prada has a foundation, for god’s sake.
And here I am, still unsure if I’m allowed to touch the exhibition catalogue without gloves.
This isn’t new-new, but it’s gotten weirdly… slick.
Fashion brands are no longer sponsoring the art — they are the art.
They’re curating. Commissioning. Building spaces better than public institutions.
And the wildest part?
Sometimes they’re actually... good at it.
Meanwhile, museums are out here filming awkward TikToks and selling tote bags that say “Support the Arts.”
Meanwhile, Gucci drops a film series directed by Harmony Korine and it’s sold out before you even hear about it.
I don’t hate it.
But I don’t know how to feel about the fact that I’ve seen better curation in an LVMH lobby than at my city’s last biennale.
I mean — on one hand, money.
On the other hand… also money.
These fashion-art hybrids are sleek, cinematic, terrifyingly branded.
You leave feeling impressed and vaguely poor.
And let’s be honest — the merch is better.
Do you want a beige tote or a Raf Simons x Mondrian silk scarf?
Exactly.
It’s not just the aesthetics.
It’s the control.
These brands don’t just support artists — they absorb them.
Their vision. Their language. Their cool.
It’s not patronage — it’s cultural acquisition.
And no one seems to be asking:
What happens to art when it’s dressed like a runway show and priced like a handbag?
Is this the future?
Fashion houses with curators-in-residence?
Art fairs sponsored by Balenciaga?
Open calls judged by someone in a Margiela mask?
Would I go?
Honestly? Yeah. I probably would.
But I’d still bring my beige tote. Just in case.
💬 P.S. Have you seen a fashion-sponsored show that blew your mind (or made you cringe)?
Would love to know what brands you think are doing it right — or too right.
💌 Subscribe if you’re into:
Real talk for real artists (and real doubt). Weekly-ish. Zero fluff. Occasional spirals.
Some satire. A bit of side-eye. Always honest.
Fashion has a complex for not being high brow as art but the craft aspect of it and its limitations oddly is a great place for art to find its footing in 3-d rather than digitizing into the ether. I think we are having a real problem identifying with our bodies and physical reality, or wanting to see art as “real,” fashion offers a technology that is nimble, consumed, and embodied in the culture, so it becomes a useful carrier of the curated art into public space but in fragments, useful ones, sort of like a continuation of what public art used to be. It also feeds information into the curation in a tangible way (runway shows, sales of runway goods, images upon images on social media) that gives it authority in a way that art can be embodied or reproduced.
I’ll admit to being one of those artists who has always had an eye-roll at the ready for the slightest hint of an art-fashion collab going back to the ‘80s. Mostly because the art’s meaning(s) always seemed to be watered down and the artist made almost disposable. I’ve always viewed art and fashion collabs as the art being treated as nothing more than a branded and expensive backdrop. Art has been a commodity for centuries, but the way its meanings can get swallowed up and hollowed out by contemporary capitalist culture can be disappointing, at the least.
There are a lot of sides to this and I’m not entirely sure what to think of it, but I’m always looking at it with some skepticism.