Barbican exhibition Dirty Looks explores fashion's relationship with dirt, stains and decay

Dirty Looks, an exhibition at London's Barbican, examines clothing's relationship with dirt, decay, stains and waste. The show features simulated stains including fake urine on JordanLuca jeans, Di Petsa's breast-milk-soaked top, and period-blotched knickers. Historical practices like using stale urine as bleach, documented in Hannah Woolley's 1677 book The Complete Chamber Maid, provide context. Hussein Chalayan's 1993 graduate collection The Tangent Flows includes garments buried for six months, resulting in delicate, earth-marinated pieces. Studio Solitaire presents bog-body-inspired works similarly interred. Alice Potts creates biocouture using salt solutions from sweat that crystallize on fabric. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's 1982 Nostalgia of Mud collection references Émile Augier's phrase and Tom Wolfe's 1970 essay Radical Chic. Anthropologist Mary Douglas's 1966 book Purity and Danger informs the exhibition's exploration of dirt as 'matter out of place'. American designer Elena Velez's Spring/Summer 2024 show features mud-wrestling models, with her work described as flirting with fashion-adjacent fascism. Velez hosted a salon on Gone with the Wind with Red Scare's Anna Khachiyan. The exhibition questions who is considered dirty and why, positioning garments as material witnesses to the body. Rosalind Jana authored the source article for ArtReview.