Fashion fascinates and makes demands, fashion exists and vanishes. Fashion has power, gives power and creates resistance - which often leads to new fashion. The collection of clothes in the Nordiska museet, from the eighteen century to the present day, reflects a complex relationship between the inner person and the exterior, between society and the individual, between the need for community and the desire to differ from the crowd. Clothes also capture the time.
Power of fashion highlights three decades that marked the start of something new. The 1780s, the 1860s, and the 1960s were times of change when events, ideas and technical innovations changed the world and when people changed the way they dressed.
Power of fashion examines in depth how clothes have been used, the materials and manufacture the image of fashion, the fashion makers, and fashion in everyday life.