On or off the runway, fashion can conjure up psychoanalytical questions that are spoken or subliminal. And this fall, The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology will stage the first exhibition to dive into the cultural history of fashion and psychoanalysis.

Drawing from five years of research, “Dress, Dreams, and Desire: Fashion and Psychoanalysis” delves into psychoanalytic concepts about the body, sexuality and the unconscious, by highlighting nearly 100 looks from the 19th century to the present. Th exhibition will be on view from Sept. 10 to Jan. 4.

Fashion fans will find a wide swath of designer creations from Azzedine Alaia, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, Willy Chavarria, Bella Freud, John Galliano for Christian Dior, Jean Paul Gaultier, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons, Alexander McQueen, Thierry Mugler, Rick Owens, Olivier Rousteing for Balmain, Sonia Rykiel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Jeremy Scott for Moschino, Jun Takahashi of Undercover, Gianni and Donatella Versace, Viktor & Rolf, Grace Wales Bonner, Vivienne Westwood and Yohji Yamamoto.

Overseeing the orchestration is the MFIT’s director and chief curator Valerie Steele, who was nicknamed “the Freud of Fashion” by fashion critic Suzy Menkes. The unprecedented show is meant to reflect the museum’s commitment to original inquiry and creative thinking about the cultural significance of dress. Needless to say, there will be a lot to unpack. Those who want to dive deeper will have to wait until November for the release of Steele’s companion book about the exhibition.

Steele said, “Fashion is a primary lens through which we see ourselves — and how others see us. Far from being superficial, fashion can be regarded as a ‘deep surface’ that communicates our unconscious desires and anxieties, with none of us fully aware of the messages we send. The Museum at FIT is dedicated to advancing knowledge of fashion, and psychoanalysis provides important clues about the power and allure of fashion, as well as the ambivalence and hostility that fashion also attracts.”

The exhibition will be set up chronologically and thematically, starting off with a historical look at the relationship between fashion and psychoanalysis. In what sounds like a fitting opener, the introductory gallery will shed some light on Sigmund Freud’s personal style circa 1900. Visitors will also find a primer about his radical ideas about sexuality and the unconscious, and his problematic theories about women’s “exhibitionistic” and “narcissistic” relationship with fashion.

From there, gallery goers will get a glimpse of the 1920s and 1930s, when psychoanalysis was associated with sexual and personal freedom, especially as it related to women and sexual minorities, according to the advance material. Unlike Freud, the British psychoanalyst and experimental psychologist J.C. Flügel envied women’s freedom to adorn and expose themselves. One of Flügel’s contemporaries Joan Riviere, who came of age with what was then an increasing cohort of female psychoanalysts, theorized that femininity was a “masquerade” that was necessitated by male prejudice.

Advance press material for the exhibition suggests that “it is widely recognized” that by the 1950s, most psychoanalysts, especially in the U.S., were “virulently homophobic and misogynistic.” One shift occurred in the second half of the 20th century, when some feminists and LGBTQIA+ activists stopped rejecting Freud as “the enemy” and called for more inclusive, and liberatory psychoanalysis.

While that historical area may give visitors reason to linger, there is more fashion ahead. The exhibition then takes a closer look at themes as they relate to different types of fashion, as they are seen through the lens of psychoanalytic ideas about dreams, desire, sexual difference and death. Building off the idea that Freud interpreted most dreams as disguised sexual wishes, there will be such connections as Moschino’s chocolate bar dress as sign of the pleasure principle with the incentive being to seek pleasure and avoid pain.

Those who never took Psychology 101 will also learn how by contrast, Carl Jung interpreted dreams in terms of eternal archetypes from the collective unconscious. While many designers favor the feminine prototype of a queen or lover, in September 2008, Rick Owens created a more esoteric collection dedicated to the “Priestesses of Longing,” which was the antithesis of Hollywood glamour.

At the MFIT, visitors will also learn how Freud later went “beyond the pleasure principle” to develop a psychoanalytic theory called “the death drive,” Also known as “Thanatos,” it is characterized by aggression and destruction. There will be references to Josephus Thimister’s anti-war haute couture collection that debuted in January 2010 — “1915: Bloodshed and Opulence,” which drew from the Bolshevik Revolution and its aftermath. Another thought-provoking collection was Undercover’s Takahashi one that featured roses and razor blades. Some might read that as evoking Eros — life and love — versus Thanatos — death and destruction.

With body positivity and identity top-of-mind with many in the fashion industry, the exhibition will also dive into the development of body image and personal identity through Jacques Lacan’s theory of the mirror stage — an individual’s lifelong process of developing a self-image. In addition, there will be hints of Didier Anzieu’s concept of the skin ego — as in a sense of self that is formed initially through the sensations on the skin. The Elsa Schiaparelli-designed jacket with embroidered rococo hand mirrors will be on view too. It could be considered a sign of ambivalence toward her mirror image, or the body image created through internalizing the gaze of the other.

Dress scholars have recently borrowed from Anzieu’s skin ego to view clothing as a changeable, renewable second skin that offers physical and psychological protection. Visitors will also wade further into psychoanalytic ideas about the object of desire, sexual fetishism and movement toward nonbinary and gender-fluid dress, and how that plays out in society’s openness about sexuality and gender.