NODEM 2014 Proceedings

Exhibiting Fashion: Museums as Myth in Contemporary Branding and Media Culture
However, the fact that Armani had donated a large sum to the Guggenheim also led to heated debate of institutional
ethics, and the Guggenheim was accused of corporate sell-out by letting Armani buy its way into the
art world (Steele 2008).
Museums in fashion branding and retail design: Koolhaas & Prada
Blurred boundaries
Art museums serve as frameworks of reference through which commodities may be presented to consumers
(Taylor 2005), articulated via the inclusion of the archetypical aesthetics of art museums in retail spaces. (Cairns
2010) More prominent in museums devoted to material culture than in art museums, the most potent symbol
of “the museum” in the context of fashion branding is the glass display cabinet. It tends to be appropriated in
retail spaces, as a rather banal signification of “do not touch these valuable objects” or “these valuable objects
are not commodities”, making objects transcend their former status as commodity. And as fashion moves into
museums, the aesthetics of museums move into retail spaces, making them, as stated by Dietmar M Steiner
(2000), indistinguishable from one another:
Museums, by virtue of their architectonic consciousness have become places where lifestyles are staged. This potential
has been extended from the field of the arts and the museum to the field of fashion and advertising. Thus, it is now
becoming difficult to differentiate between a museum and a department store. (p. 21)
According to Barthes, “the fundamental character of the mythical concept is to be appropriated” (p 119). Prada
provides an interesting example of the many ways in which a global fashion brand may appropriate museum
aesthetics and incorporate museum myths in its retail design. For more than fifteen years, Prada has collaborated
extensively with OMA (Office for Contemporary Architecture) and its branch AMO (Architecture for Metropolitan
Office) led by Dutch “Starchitect” Rem Koolhaas. The collaboration is extensive, and a full analysis of
this is beyond the scope of this paper. However, this collaboration is key in understanding relations between
fashion and museum myths in contemporary fashion branding. For Miuccia Prada and her husband and business
partner Patrizio Bertelli, it was a major challenge to maintain a sense of exclusivity in times of expansion
(Ryan 2005). In the book “Projects for Prada”, published by Prada’s art foundation, Fondazione Prada Milano in
2001, Koolhaas presents concepts for the development of the brand. One strategy presented in the publication
is to redefine shopping as a cultural activity, and redefine shoppers as museum-visitors, library-visitors etc,
and to conceive of the brand’s history as an archive. Many of these concepts are present in Prada’s New York
flagship store, (or Epicenter, as Prada refers to their flagship retail spaces). A spectacular space was erected on
the former premises of the Soho Guggenheim, a context already infused with cultural significance, as Soho is
associated with galleries and artist’s studios. Interestingly, the actual sales area in the retail space is removed
from visitors’ attention, located in the lower floor, backgrounding (Cairns 2010) the commodities in favour of
an experience of entering a modern art museum or a temple (Newhouse 1998).
Exhibiting the fashion archive
But what does the museum as myth offer Prada, a brand part-taking in the cyclical fashion system? Koolhas
(unnumbered pages) states: “in a world where everything is shopping and shopping is everywhere, the ultimate
luxury is not to be shopping”. This is key in understanding how museum myths are incorporated into the
larger conceptualisation of shopping as culture, and articulated in the architecture and retail design of the
brand. The museum is conveyed as the absence of shopping and of the active associated decision-making. In
Koolhaas’s sense, the museum becomes a medium and a space where the multivalent expression of the brand
may be exhibited.
NODEM 2014 Conference & Expo
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