Cross-pollination: Fashion & psychoanalysis is an innovative global exhibition uniting emerging designers from LASALLE College of the Arts, Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) and University of Monterrey.
Inspired by the Museum at FIT’s Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis (2025–2026) curated by Dr Valerie Steele, this exhibition explores the unconscious interplay of identity, emotion and embodiment in fashion through psychoanalytic frameworks and themes such as the ‘Mirror Stage’, ‘the Gaze’, and the ‘Fragmented Body’, ‘Skin/Bodies to Wear’, and ‘The Naked Dreamer/Surrealism’.
This groundbreaking Collaboration Online International Learning (COIL) project challenged students to translate complex theories into tangible expressions. The resulting outcomes from garments, textiles and experimental eyewear designs supported by bbase Design group offer Southeast Asian, North American and Latin American perspectives that decentre traditional fashion discourse and showcase meticulous craftsmanship articulating personal identity. The exhibition invites you to view clothing as a ‘deep surface’ and a vessel for dreams, desire and the shifting self, celebrating fashion as a cultural artefact and a powerful psychological expression.
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