The Fashion & Lace Museum invites you to explore simplicity in clothing. Spanning more than two centuries of history, this new exhibition looks at the times when people favoured purity, practicality, and naturalness in what they wore. Fashion is often associated with luxury, opulence, and novelty. Here, its function as a mirror of cultural and social change is examined. This is a subject that has previously received little attention.

Tracing the history of this quest for the natural and the authentic puts our contemporary concerns in a long-term perspective and prompts us to consider their ambiguities, tensions and grey areas.
Mathilde Semal, curator

Simplicities begins at the end of the 18th century. Enlightenment thinking and a concern with medicine and hygiene led to profound changes in outward appearance. This ‘return to nature’ meant a rejection of artifice, new cuts of clothing, breathable fabrics and an aesthetic vocabulary inspired by Antiquity. This fashion ideal came to reflect a new lifestyle that blended comfort, liberation of the body, and closeness to nature.

The exhibition consists of six chapters, each of which explores different aspects of simplicity. Drawn from across centuries of fashion, the pieces on display are presented alongside garments by contemporary designers such as Dries van Noten, Ester Manas, Issey Miyake, and Ann Demeulemeester, pointing to the continuities, comebacks, and contradictions of this aesthetic. Discover this overlooked facet of fashion history!