Art & Fashion: A Once-In-A-Lifetime Exhibition
I’d like to share an amazing experience I had while in Lisbon, Portugal in June. It was an incredible opportunity that happened quite by accident.
As we returned to the hotel one evening, I saw a huge poster at the bus stop advertising a fashion and art event at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. I’d never heard of the museum (not to mention Calouste Gulbenkian) but was intrigued, so we decided to see the exhibition the next day - the last day of our Portugal trip.
The occasion of the exhibit was to celebrate the 70th year anniversary of the museum. The exhibit, named Arte & Moda (Art and Fashion), was held from April 18th to June 21st. It was truly amazing, site-specific and not a travelling exhibition as is sometimes the case. This made the experience that much more special. Below I share with you some of the many photos I took at the event.
The curator, Eloy Martínez De La Pera Celada, gives a brief introduction to the exhibit. Also, if you have instagram, check out this short, fun video describing the show; and this one, too.
I was amazed by this suit. That someone could use such precious Ming Dynasty porcelain is quite amazing. Li Xiaofeng designs other pieces with ceramics as well.
The choice of Chinese potters to combine white porcelain and brilliant blue painting beneath a transparent glaze proved a global triumph in the fourteenth century. Jingdezhen, in southeastern China, established itself as the leading centre of porcelain manufacture for centuries, driving the refinement of this technique.
Subsequent experiments with imported enamels, known as 'foreign colours,' allowed artisans to develop a wider range of tones.
In the seventeenth century, the taste for blue-and-white spread to Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, Mexico and Brazil, attracting consumers worldwide and continuing to inspire artists across many disciplines to this day. One such example is the designer Guo Pei, whose decorative motifs [shown above] evoke the tradition of Chinese ceramics through their colour palette and motifs such as lotus flowers.
(Quote from Arte & Moda Exhibition - Calouste Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
In 1968, Yves Saint Laurent’s Saharan jacket – in beige gabardine, with utilitarian pockets and a cinched belt – became an icon at a moment when fashion was engaging with social upheaval and the rise of pret-á-porter (ready-to-wear). A garment with masculine and colonial roots, it was transformed by Saint Laurent into a feminine manifesto, sensual and provocative: utility became desire, structure became skin. Its defining moment came with the cover of Vogue featuring Veruschka, photographed by Franco Rubartelli, an image that distilled a decade of emancipation and rupture. That saharienne was not merely a trend; it was a narrative of its time: freedom, gender ambiguity and the conviction that fashion could also be revolution. (Quote from the Arte & Moda Exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum.)
Chinese designer, Guo Pei, is the first Asian-born designer to be invited to the French Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode. Seen here is her amazing 'Umbrella Dress' from 2009.
In 2021, Portuguese designer Nuno Gama transformed the runway into a civic act by devising a performance in which a jacket embroidered with the word 'Portugal' across the back was passed from model to model. The gesture - simple yet deeply symbolic - transformed the garment into a shared flag: it belonged not to an individual, but to a community. Amid reflection on recent crises, particularly the COVID-19 pandemic, the act underlined that a country's strength lies in its cohesion and in the solidarity of its people. Fashion thus ceased to be merely aesthetic, becoming instead a collective message and reminding us that design can also convey resilience, unity and hope. (Quote from Arte & Moda Exhibition Calouste Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
Dandyism was a quiet revolution that transformed men's fashion into a philosophy of life. Born in modern England and consolidated in London, it turned the sobriety of the dark suit and the perfection of its cut into emblems of intellectual elegance. Under the influence of Beau Brummell, men's dress abandoned the chromatic excesses of the Ancien Régime to embrace a restrained elegance built on precision and attitude. London - the city where Mr. Calouste Gulbenkian had his bespoke suits made - thus emerged as the epicentre of contemporary menswear, establishing an ideal in which restraint became synonymous with grandeur. (Quote from Arte & Moda Exhibition - Calousté Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon 2026.)
British designer Alexander McQueen designed this ensemble for the Givenchy Autumn-Winter 1999-2000 collection when he worked at the fashion house.
The skirt is one of the earliest forms of dress and, perhaps for that reason, one of the most universal: a genderless garment that has accompanied both men and women for many centuries. Present in the tunics of Ancient Egypt, in the ceremonial dress of the East, in the traditional Scottish kilt or in the habits of monastic orders throughout the centuries, the skirt has been a symbol of identity, power and transcendence. (Quote from the Arte & Moda Exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
Japanese designer Yojhi Yamamoto. This might be one of my favourite pieces in the entire exhibit. Why? Because of its simplicity and the 'raw-ness' of the visible stitches as well as the classic white blouse paired with the navy skirt. Perhaps this is a carry-over from my time at boarding school - wearing a navy uniform with a white blouse.
In contemporary fashion, designers such as Yohji Yamamoto have revived its potential as a space for formal freedom, freeing it from binary distinctions. More than a garment associated with one sex, the skirt is an open architecture that allows the body to breathe, move and express itself - evidence that fashion, in its deepest essence, transcends categories and speaks a universal language. (Quote from the Arte & Moda Exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
British designer Stella McCartney's piece from 2000 when she worked at Chloe. Plastic 'feathers' make this red coat very textured. I'm intrigued by the electric yellow coat beside it on the right - I can't believe I missed taking a photo of it, but my camera was running out of 'juice'. There were SO many pieces to look at.
Charles Frederick Worth is, with good reason, regarded as the great architect of modern haute couture from the mid-nineteenth century onwards. He not only elevated the profession of couturier to that of creator, by signing his garments - asserting authorship as an artistic gesture — but also established the system of seasonal collections, organized the first shows with live models, and transformed his aristocratic and imperial clients into true arbiters of style. With Worth, fashion ceased to be mere bespoke dressmaking and became a narrative of design - aspirational, public and strategic. He understood before anyone else that dress could become a brand, a spectacle, and a status symbol; in doing so, he laid the foundations of the contemporary fashion system where creation, communication and power converge. (Quote from the Arte & Moda Exhibition at the Gulbenkian Museum.)
Nile green emerged in the nineteenth century as a colour closely associated with the Orientalist imagination and with the technical advances of the European textile industry. Its name evokes the River Nile and the aura of exoticism, progress and cultural expansion that accompanied the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. It was precisely in this context that Charles Frederick Worth created a gown for Empress Eugénie de Montijo in this watery, delicately bluish tone, conceived to symbolize modernity, diplomacy and imperial sophistication at an event of global significance. Following its appearance at court, the shade spread rapidly through the salons of Paris and London, becoming one of the most coveted colours of the decade. (Quote from Arte & Moda Exhibition - Calouste Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
The outfit shown here may appear less green than the original - each computer will show the colour slightly different.
A piece by the Spanish-Italian designer Mariano Fortuny - a stenciled velvet jacket with fur trim circa 1934.
Romeo Gigli (born 1949) is an Italian fashion designer who was described in the late 1980s as singlehandedly changing the course of fashion. (Quote by the Los Angeles Times.)
I loved Romeo Gigli's work. He had such a romantic esthetic. His large signature collars on his coats were something I admired so much. I had just come back to Canada from having lived in Japan for two years, and still have one of the fashion magazines (in Japanese) that I have kept all these years with several of his designs photographed.
This dress was designed by Spanish fashion designer Josep Font. It is the "Blue and White Porcelain" gown from his Autumn/Winter 2008–2009 Haute Couture collection (titled "Mi España"), which featured a tulip silhouette made of embroidered tulle, printed gazar inspired by traditional Andalusian and Valencian ceramics, and striking blue ostrich feathers. (Blue and White Porcelain Dress by Josep Font)
Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli - 1939 Buddha Print Dress. One of the earliest examples of Buddhist imagery used in Western haute couture.
The iconic Gold Dress by Guo Pei. This dress is what established Guo Pei as a couture designer. It took two years to create, 50,000 hours to sew and cost a million dollars to complete. (From the following short video; definitely worth a watch.)
Black occupies a central place in the history of Fashion as an emblem of Spanish identity. In the sixteenth century, under the reign of Philip Il, it became the colour of the court and of power: a deep, costly black whose intensity was made possible by logwood, imported from the territories of Mexico following the discovery of the Americas. This dye, the product of imperial trade routes, turned black into both a technical and a geopolitical luxury. Against it, the white ruff stood out, rigid and architectural, framing the face as a sign of dignity and hierarchy. Centuries later, Cristóbal Balenciaga revisited that tradition and transformed black into pure structure, elevating Spanish sobriety to a universal language. Thus, from the Spanish Golden Age to twentieth-century haute couture, black became far more than a colour: it was power, history and destiny. (Quote from Arte & Moda Exhibition - Calouste Gulbenkian Museum 2026.)
