A New Exhibition at the Museum of Craft and Design Aims to Redefine Fashion Through Accessibility

Mode Brut, a collaboration between the Museum of Craft and Design and Creativity Explored, is a fashion-based exhibition featuring unique designs by over 50 Creativity Explored artists. Focusing on fashion as an art practice, this exhibition features four new collections made by designer teams alongside developmentally disabled artists. Participating collaborators include Creativity Explored Studio Line, led by instructor Victor Molina; community art collective Bonanza; queer advocate and model Yanni Brumfield; and San Francisco-based haute couture fashion brand Tokyo Gamine.

The exhibition aims to challenge visitors to think past familiar modes of apparel by redefining what — and who — is fashionable. Yanni Brumfield notes that their collection for Mode Brut embodies “a fierce, radical limitless tone, one of Self, Freedom of expression, gender non-conforming, and body positivity. It shows the audience you can be any version of you and express that in any way you like. It’s a statement of self-acceptance and love.”

Through the lens of developmentally disabled artists at the intersection of visual arts, fashion, and outsider art, Mode Brut hopes to encourage viewers to consider the role fashion can play when it comes to questions of accessibility, gender roles, and identity.

Mode Brut is now on view through January 23, 2022. A virtual runway fashion show featuring participating artists and designers will premiere online on September 30, 2021.

To learn more and reserve tickets, visit sfmcd.org.

Support for Mode Brut is generously provided by Pamela and David Hornik. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Coordinated Resources Inc. of San Francisco, and The California Wellness Foundation. Mode Brut is made possible in part by the Gucci Changemakers Impact Fund and The Creative Work Fund, a program of the Walter and Elise Haas Fund that also is supported by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Saks Fifth Avenue and DOGO. For the full list of supporters, visit sfmcd.org/modebrut.