OPENING: May 1st, 6-8pm

Punk Politics…Camp Costuming Explores Political Expression in Fashion

New York, NY — Punk Politics…Camp Costuming positions punk and camp as modes of political expression in fashion from the 1970s to the present. On view at La Sudestada in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, the exhibition brings together garments, accessories, and graphic materials, demonstrating how subcultural style transforms dress into a language of resistance, identity, and visibility.

Punk emerges through DIY construction, distressed materials, and confrontational text, where clothing serves as a direct form of protest. Camp, by contrast, uses exaggeration and stylization to challenge norms around gender, taste, and propriety. In dialogue, punk and camp operate as forms of messaging that extend beyond surface aesthetics.

The exhibition includes slogan T-shirts, knitwear, and footwear alongside contemporary works, with public programming such as badge-making, DIY T-shirt printing, and hands-on textile workshops.

About the MA Fashion Studies Program at Parsons
The MA Fashion Studies program at Parsons School of Design examines fashion as dress, bodily practice, media, and industry. Through an interdisciplinary approach, students develop critical research and writing skills while exploring the visual and material dimensions of fashion and their social and political meanings. The program supports projects that engage with fashion as a form of cultural analysis, often extending into exhibitions, publishing, and public-facing work.