Items: Is Fashion Modern?

Organized by Paola Antonelli Is Fashion Modern? explores the present, past and sometimes the future of 111 items of clothing and accessories that have had a strong impact on the world in the 20th and 21st centuries. Among them are pieces as well-known and transformative as the Levi’s 501s, the Breton shirt, and the Little Black Dress and as ancient and culturally charged as the sari, the pearl necklace, the kippah, and the keffiyeh. Driven first and foremost by objects, not designers, the exhibition considers the many relationships between fashion and functionality, culture, aesthetics, politics, labor, identity, economy, and technology.