Garments worn by writers from Jane Austen to Joan Didion hang beside their letters and manuscripts, with collections by Dior, Prada and Erdem drawn from literary characters.
Clothes by Dior, Prada and Comme des Garçons meet the diaries and manuscripts of writers from Jane Austen to Zadie Smith at the Barbican Centre from Thursday 15 April 2027.
The exhibition looks at how authors have used clothing to build their characters and to fashion their own image. Rarely seen garments and accessories that belonged to writers are shown with their correspondence and photography.
The writers include Charlotte Brontë, Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, Colette, Sylvia Plath, James Baldwin and Joan Didion. The characters include Orlando, Frankenstein, Alice, Beloved and Dracula, and a set photograph shows Tilda Swinton in Sally Potter’s 1992 film of Orlando.
Contemporary collections inspired by literary characters come from Erdem, Simone Rocha, Wales Bonner, Robert Wun and Alexander McQueen, among others. Duro Olowu and Rocha also make installations, as do the novelists Ottessa Moshfegh and Arundhati Roy.
The final room is a reading room curated by the writer and curator Lou Stoppard. The show runs in the Art Gallery on Level 3 until Sunday 29 August 2027, and tickets go on sale in spring 2027.