Exhibiting fashion on the heritage site: the interrelation between body, heritage space, and fashionable clothing

The study addresses how fashion exhibitions staged on heritage sites move beyond visual primacy to foreground haptic, bodily engagement and spatial storytelling. Situated within the rise of fashion museology and the inclusive museum, the paper conceptualizes heritage space as a performative, affective environment that co-produces meaning with visitors’ bodies and displayed garments. The authors argue that site-specific, culturally inscribed environments can mediate and reframe the historic and cultural content of fashionable clothing through embodied movement, thereby reconnecting audiences to garments originally made to be worn and felt. This approach complements traditional, representation-driven museum practices by advocating an inclusive, multisensory experience accessible regardless of visitors’ backgrounds.

The review traces a shift from viewing fashion primarily as identity and material culture to examining fashion in museums and the embodied, spatial dimensions of display. It synthesizes scholarship on: (1) fashion as cultural identity and social practice (e.g., Wilson, Entwistle, Davis, Svendsen, Gell), highlighting dress as a medium that expresses personhood, status, ethnicity, and social adaptation; (2) the historical integration of fashion into museums, from early 20th-century costume displays to contemporary high-profile exhibitions, and the institutional/political dynamics this entails (Palmer; Steele; Petrov); (3) a shift from dress museology (collection- and object-centered, preservation-oriented) to fashion museology (experience- and atmosphere-centered), emphasizing narrative, affect, and visitor engagement (Melchior); (4) the significance of display spaces—from “white cubes” to culturally charged environments—in shaping how bodies perceive and understand fashion (Potvin), including the capacity of heritage sites to provoke multisensory encounters; (5) the under-examined role of haptic experience in fashion exhibitions due to conservation-driven visual dominance (Bennett; Riello; Petrov), and theoretical framings of haptics as embodied knowledge that extends beyond skin contact to multisensory perception (Gibson; Paterson; Pallasmaa); and (6) the inclusive museum paradigm (Vergo; Clifford; Message; Mason; Fleming), proposing bodily-inclusive, affective practices that democratize access and meaning-making through embodied movement within heritage settings.

The research employs ethnographic methods combining participant observation, autoethnography, and archival research. Two case studies are analyzed: (1) Pierre Cardin’s international fashion exhibition and runway in Beijing (1979), examined via archival photographs and texts accessed at the National Library of China and the National Digital Library of China (research in 2022–2023); and (2) Peking Express, a temporary fashion exhibition curated by Alexander van Slobbe with Lan Lan at the Beijing Temple of Confucius and Imperial College Museum (Guozijian) in 2013. One author co-curated and directly participated in Peking Express; both authors conducted repeated site visits (on average three times per year since 2013), documenting experiences through photography. Autoethnographic self-reflection foregrounds researcher subjectivity in interpreting the affective, cultural, and social meanings of the heritage site and exhibition design. Case selection was guided by the focus on bodily inclusivity and lived encounter, contrasting direct on-site bodily engagement (Peking Express) with indirect engagement through archival reconstruction (Cardin). The analytical lens draws on affect theory and more-than-representational approaches to heritage space to examine the interrelationship among curatorial/heritage space, bodily movement, and displayed clothing.

• Heritage sites actively mediate fashion exhibitions by fostering haptic, affective, and multisensory encounters that go beyond visual perception, enabling visitors’ bodily movements to articulate the meanings of displayed garments.
• Case 1 (Pierre Cardin, 1979, Cultural Palace of Nationalities): The show functioned as a cultural event situated in a politically and culturally symbolic venue (modern museum complex built on a historic judicial site; area >37,000 m²). Approximately 500 invited professionals and journalists attended. Cardin’s volumetric, color-rich designs contrasted sharply with the audience’s monochromatic everyday dress of the period, making bodily presence central to co-producing the event’s atmosphere and significance. The heritage-charged space amplified the audience–garment encounter, evidencing how spatial context shapes affective reception and cultural interpretation.
• Case 2 (Peking Express, 2013, Beijing Temple of Confucius and Imperial College Museum): The exhibition juxtaposed contemporary red silk garments with 189 historic stone tablets (each approx. 305×106×31.5 cm, engraved in 1794 with >630,000 characters), across two conjoined heritage complexes (approx. 22,000 m² and 27,000 m²). Curatorial strategies—no vitrines, no Do-Not-Touch signs, 360-degree circulation, narrow gaps—invited visitors to touch garments and stone surfaces, bend, squeeze, and view from multiple angles, producing embodied, haptic understanding and spatial storytelling. The design framed garments and heritage elements as reciprocal mediators, creating a hybrid space where bodily traces (of makers and visitors) became legible.
• Across cases, curatorial emphasis on atmosphere, movement, and tactility instantiated the inclusive museum ideal: meaning emerged through individual embodied encounters irrespective of visitors’ backgrounds, demonstrating that heritage architecture can be harnessed to activate body-inclusive fashion museology.

The findings demonstrate that exhibiting fashion on heritage sites transforms display from object-centered visuality to embodied, affective practice. Heritage spaces—rich in cultural residuals and historical inscriptions—operate as performative environments that co-constitute meaning with visitors’ bodies and exhibited garments. In the Cardin case, the politically resonant venue and the audience’s bodily presence co-produced the show’s cultural impact, exemplifying how space mediates reception. In Peking Express, curatorial design explicitly solicited touch and movement, enabling visitors to sense material contrasts (silk versus stone), perceive makers’ traces, and co-author spatial narratives. This body–space–garment interrelation aligns with fashion museology’s shift toward immersive atmospheres and the inclusive museum’s emphasis on access via experience. The discussion underscores curatorial implications: selecting culturally charged sites; designing for multiple sensory modalities; choreographing movement paths; and balancing curatorial authorship with visitors’ processual, dialogic meaning-making. Ultimately, haptic engagement emerges as a robust pathway for reinterpreting fashion’s historical and cultural significance within contemporary publics.

Fashion exhibitions on heritage sites can expand traditional curatorial practices in Chinese heritage museums by leveraging culturally inscribed architecture to mediate embodied visitor–garment encounters. Such exhibitions shift emphasis from visual representation to haptic understanding, advancing a body-inclusive, affective model of fashion museology and delivering inclusive access irrespective of class, age, gender, ethnicity, or education. The two case studies show that curatorial design which choreographs movement, invites touch, and situates garments within heritage narratives fosters hybrid spaces where cultural meanings are (re)articulated through lived experience. As static fashion displays on heritage sites remain relatively rare in China but are growing, future practice should continue to privilege multisensory, emotionally sensitive, and materially grounded strategies that activate spatial vagueness and indeterminacy as interpretive resources. Haptic experience thus offers an alternative means to (re)interpret displayed clothing beyond wearing or mere looking.

• The study is based on two case studies in the Chinese context, limiting generalizability.
• One case (Cardin, 1979) relies on archival materials rather than direct on-site observation, constraining experiential analysis.
• The authors’ direct involvement and autoethnographic approach in Peking Express foreground subjectivity, which may introduce interpretive bias.
• No quantitative visitor studies or conservation impact assessments of haptic interaction are provided, limiting empirical validation of audience experience claims.