Dalí and Fashion Exhibition Explores the Surrealist’s Influence on Style

Milan is hosting a major exhibition exploring the complex relationship between Salvador Dalí and fashion. Titled Dalí and Fashion, the exhibition opens at the Palazzo Reale on September 24, 2026, offering an extensive look at how the famous Spanish surrealist incorporated fashion into his artistic practice and influenced the development of modern style.

The exhibition highlights Dalí’s ability to merge fashion and art while demonstrating how clothing, photography, performance, and visual culture became important elements of his creative world. It also examines the development of Dalí’s personal “uniform” and the ways he understood clothing as a tool for creating identity and imagery.

Featuring around 200 exhibits, the exhibition brings together clothing, paintings, and photographs from three major Dalí collections in Figueres and Madrid in Spain and St. Petersburg, Florida. Loans from the archives of leading fashion houses further illustrate the artist’s numerous relationships and collaborations with the fashion industry.

Dalí’s Collaborations With Fashion Designers

Throughout his career, Dalí collaborated with some of the most influential couturiers of the 20th century, including Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior, and Paco Rabanne. Among the exhibition’s highlights are dresses created for Dalí’s muse and wife, Gala, including designs initially created by Dior and Givenchy.

Montse Aguer, director of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, and Laura Bartolomé, chief researcher of the foundation, have emphasized the breadth of Dalí’s creative presence across different fields. They have compared his multidisciplinary approach with that of Renaissance artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

The exhibition organizers aim to demonstrate how clearly Dalí understood fashion’s ability to construct identities, create images, and influence mass culture. His collaborations with couturiers, relationships with photographers and magazines, experimentation with materials, and use of performance all demonstrate the role fashion played within his broader artistic practice.

Dalí’s influence can still be seen in contemporary fashion. The exhibition specifically points to Belgian designer Daniel Roseberry’s work for Schiaparelli as an example of how the surrealist’s ideas continue to inspire designers decades after his collaborations with the fashion world. Dalí and Fashion runs at Milan’s Palazzo Reale from September 24, 2026, through January 31, 2027, with its press launch coinciding with Milan Fashion Week.