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The 2nd December unlocked an exhibition based on something we all have, use and show. Our identity. A seemingly simple project; but under closer inspection lay intricate undertones between our relationship with fashion, art and the fusion of which unearths our identities. Nestled between Old Bond Street and Burlington Gardens rests the Royal Academy of Arts and the partnership with GSK testify to the creativity and originality of this exhibition.

Through several mediums the ‘GSK Contemporary-Aware: Art Fashion Identity’ exhibition unveils the realities to why as individuals and as a collection we expose ourselves the way we do. Clothing illustrates our aspirations, our unconscious, our lifestyle all of which incites a mechanism of powerful self-expression. Specifically, ‘Aware’ seeks to reflect upon our relationship with others and our constructed surroundings, for which clothing provides key symbols of interpretation of our social, political and historical vision of the world.

In both disciplines, fashion and art live in harmony and in disagreement, participating or withdrawing from society’s claims the dimensional duo remain eager to interpret the world and remain responsive, receptive and essential in diverging between envisioning and crafting. Together, they consummate a representation, a veneer mirrored in its creation and its meaning. For many, clothing professes an ability to alter us, to alter our view of the world to an extent in which clothes imbue individuals not only physically, but psychologically. A flourishing correlation between fashion and art proves both instill a voice, a character which has desires, needs or tendencies which contours their vision of the world or their culture. This union allows mutual belief in referencing times in retrograde and applying moments in the present; both fashion and art channel these movements and even formulate passages which are in nascent stages, decoding the future. Mentioned above will be several of the surreal projects ‘Aware’ has to offer.