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The Museum at FIT has opened an exhibit called “Dress, Dreams & Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis” that explores the intersection between fashion and Freudian psychology through nearly 100 designer pieces.

Some key facts:

• The exhibit runs from Sept 10 to Jan. 4, 2026, at the Fashion Institute of Technology’s museum in New York and was five years in the making.

• Curator Valerie Steele, 69, is the director of The Museum at FIT and has written a companion book due out in November.

• The exhibit includes nearly 100 designer pieces that serve as a roadmap between fashion and concepts like the unconscious mind, armor, and desire.

• Featured pieces include Marc Jacobs’ 1990 “Freudian Slip” dress with Freud’s image, John Galliano’s “Freud or Fetish” collection for Dior from 2000 and Jean Paul Gaultier’s “cone-bra” dresses.

• Elsa Schiaparelli’s 1938 “Hall of Mirrors” cropped black velvet jacket is displayed, featuring trompe l’oeil gold and silver mirrors that reflect on how women were culturally perceived.

• A replica of Jennifer Lopez’s famous plunging green Versace dress from the 2000 Grammys is included to demonstrate Freud’s theory about clothes as loopholes around nudity shame.

• The second room demonstrates how fashion serves as more than a “second skin,” showing pieces like Issey Miyake’s 1983 red leather bustier and Rei Kawakubo’s architectural body-encasing dresses.

READ MORE: Fashion meets Freud. A new exhibit explores clothes through a psychoanalytic lens

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