Overview

• The exhibition runs from 25 September 2025 to 25 January 2026 at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.
• A total of 120 objects by more than 60 designers chart a lineage from the 1970s to today through deliberately soiled and decayed garments.
• Key inclusions range from Hussein Chalayan’s buried pieces and Zandra Rhodes’s 1977 safety-pinned dress to fragile works kept off mannequins for conservation.
• Six new commissions spotlight younger makers, including Alice Potts, who treated a Madame Grès gown with crystallised human sweat.
• Studio Dennis Vanderbroeck’s cracked, ruinous staging prompts close material viewing, with provocative sections on bodily fluids and simulated filth such as JordanLuca’s urine-stained jeans and JW Anderson’s pigeon clutch.