Milan dedicates an exhibition to Salvador Dalí's relationship with fashion

Milan - From Thursday, the Palazzo Reale in Milan will present an unprecedented exhibition dedicated to Spanish icon Salvador Dalí's experiments with fashion.

The exhibition highlights the surrealist artist's talent for integrating fashion into his work, contributing to its evolution and creating his own “uniform”.

More than 200 garments, paintings and photographs have been loaned by the three main Dalí collections (Figueres and Madrid in Spain, and St. Petersburg in Florida), as well as from the archives of major fashion houses.

Dalí collaborated with numerous couturiers, including Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Christian Dior and Paco Rabanne.

The artist also painted several dresses for his muse and wife Gala, designed by Dior and Givenchy, which are part of the exhibition in Milan.

Montse Aguer, artistic director of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation, and Laura Bartolomé, head of research at the institution, noted that Dalí was able to leave his mark in all fields, “like the Renaissance masters, like Leonardo or Michelangelo”.

According to the organisers, the exhibition seeks to underline “with what extraordinary lucidity Dalí understood the power of fashion to build identities, produce images and influence mass culture”.

“His collaboration with great couturiers, the dialogue he established with photographers and magazines, his experimentation with materials and his use of performance reveal an artist deeply immersed in modernity”.

His legacy remains “evident today”, particularly in the creations of Belgian designer Daniel Roseberry for Schiaparelli, the exhibition organisers noted in a statement.

The exhibition will be open from September 24, 2026, to January 31, 2027, following its press launch this Wednesday as part of Milan Fashion Week.