Last weekend the Groninger Museum opened the exhibition “Alaïa, Azzedine Alaïa in the 21st Century”. Fashion exhibitions seem to be growing more popular then ever, McQueen’s Savage Beauty being the most spectacular this year. The moving and well curated exhibition drew a staggering amount of 661,509 visitors to the museum in just three months (over 7000 visitors per day!), crowding the intimate galleries. It was the 8th most visited Met exhibition ever.

Written by Anneloes Bakker

The fashion exhibition as we know it today originated in the nineties. The 1996 Biennal of Venice, called ‘Il Tempo e la Moda’, explored the grey area between fashion and art by showing collaborations between artists and fashion designers, essentially paving the way for fashion exhibitions in museums. The Biennal was brought to New York in 1997 by the Guggenheim Museum and the Dutch were quick to adept to this trend: the Boymans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam curated a show on one of the Biennal contributors, Martin Margiela, in the same year, followed by the exhibition on Walter van Beirendonck in 1998.

In that very year the Groninger Museum hosted a retrospective on Azzedina Alaïa. The current Alaïa exhibition is meant to be a follow-up and shows designs from the current century only. The exibition is curated by Mark Wilson, who has chosen to emphasize the different materials Alaïa has used over the last years, such as wool, leather, velvet and fur. Photos of some of the exhibited pieces taken by Robert Kot can be viewed in the gallery below. The exhibition is open until the 6th of May, every day but monday. If you’re visiting the Groninger Museum, be sure to check out the other temporary exhition on design by Studio Job.

Other current fashion exhibitions:
Daphne Guinness / FIT / NYC – 7 Jan 2012
Fashion <3 Art / Gemeentemuseum / Den Haag – 9 Jan 2012
Fashion Food / Communication Museum / Berlin  – 29 Jan 2012
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. / Dallas Museum of Art / Dallas – 12 Feb 2012
Walter van Beirendonck / MoMu / Antwerpen – 17 Feb 2012

Upcoming:
Christan Louboutin / Design Museum / London 28 Mar – 1 Jul 2012
Following Fashion / MoMu / Antwerp 21 Mar – 12 Aug 2012
Impact: 50 Years of Fashion from CFDA / FIT / NYC  7 Feb – 17 Apr 2012
Iris van Herpen / Groninger Museum / Groningen 25 Mar – 2 Sep 2012
The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk. / De Kunsthal / Rotterdam: 9 Feb – 12 May 2012