What to wear at international art fairs

In an era of hyper globalisation and communication, it sometimes feels as if we are all dressed the same. Art fairs are an exception, and regulars on the circuit say every event has its own sartorial code and micro trends.

At the eight-day Tefaf art fair in Maastricht in March, for example, where 50,000 people, many of them collectors, gather to browse and trade “museum-quality” paintings, antiques and design, the overriding look is dignified, immaculate and hyper-elegant. The walkways between booths are a sea of navy blue, with the occasional splash of bohemian excess — a vertiginous sculptured hat, or a floor-length plush-velvet cape trailing between the suits of armour and gilt-framed Picassos. Here, even eccentricities express an old-world visual sensibility.

“When I last attended I wore vintage Grima earrings,” says Helen Sunderland-Cohen, a collector and Tefaf regular who is seeking rare maps for a private family collection. Her earrings by the modernist society jeweller, Andrew Grima, are a nod to the tone of this particular fair. “The earrings are innovative but simple. They don’t shout.”

By the time Art Basel in Switzerland rolls around in June, its 90,000 attendees will be dressed for both midsummer streets and fierce air conditioning. At Frieze London in October, sartorial codes will shift again, with streetwear ubiquitous. “When you walk through art fairs you get a quick vibe of the [host] country straight away,” says the UK multidisciplinary artist Charlotte Colbert, a visitor to recent Frieze fairs in London and New York and to the Venice Biennale. “England is way more liberal with clothing than France or Italy.”

Newer fairs, such as Mexico’s Zona Maco in February and Frieze Seoul, are places for riotous clubwear. Art Basel Miami Beach every December, meanwhile, is about flash. “Way more show-off, people love to be seen,” says Carolina Pasti, an Italian-American curator and art adviser who plans her own fair outfits weeks in advance. “An art fair is a moment like a fashion show.”

Regardless of location, the point of fairs is to gather artists, dealers, collectors and pundits, as well as general enthusiasts, in the same space. Sellers, who have the most to gain, tend to be the most conservative dressers. “As a gallerist I want to show off the art and maybe I’m a foil for that, rather than trying to take centre stage,” says Susanna Greeves, a senior director at the international gallery White Cube. She lists Frieze Seoul and Art Basel as her favourites for inspirational dressing.

“I don’t want to upstage the art . . . but I always appreciate taking in other fabulous outfits. Frieze Seoul especially is very young and dressed up, with more labels than you would see in Europe.” Silk shirts and flat shoes are Greeves’ “art-fair default”, as are conceptual pieces by designers such as Hussein Chalayan. “I’m aiming for classics with details: unusual earrings, vintage silk scarves. I want aesthetic interest but also to be on the sober side of fashion.”

When we speak, Greeves has just bought a vintage 1970s three-piece trouser suit in Mexico City. “That’s my next versatile art-fair piece: feminine, heavyweight, dark cream linen with a little waistcoat, lots of buttons and big ’70s lapels.” Practicality needs to be considered though. “At Frieze Los Angeles one year I was running in a very wide pair of silk flares,” she reveals. “They were totally wiped out after I tripped over the trouser legs.”

Other people dress for multiple roles. Igi Lólá Ayedun is a Brazilian artist and cultural entrepreneur. Her gallery HOA in São Paulo, which is Brazil’s first Black-owned commercial gallery, has become a non-profit promoting artists from under-represented backgrounds. Ayedun travels all over the world for fairs and plans her outfits meticulously, dressing with the host city in mind. “If it’s Paris I’m always in Chanel; if it’s Milan I wear Milanese designers. It’s like a prescription depending on where I’m going — and of course the weather.”

As a gallerist Ayedun often spends long hours in the booth. “VIP day is the day we make money and we sell most of the things, so the idea is to always reserve my best clothing for the first day. And as a dealer, I try to wear something a collector might wear. That means expensive. Some kind of tailoring — tweed — and good shoes, perhaps bright, which people notice and look expensive.” When she is not focused on selling she favours the more casual look of jeans and a basket bag.

Cherry Xu, a Shanghai-based collector, philanthropist and a member of Tate’s Asia-Pacific Acquisitions Committee, travels to seven or eight fairs a year. She is a regular at Shanghai Art Week and Art Basel Hong Kong, and is at the airport in Seoul on her way to Mexico’s Zona Maco when we speak.

She prioritises comfort but concentrates on details to stand out, especially for parties. Her tricks include origami-shaped hats by Charles Jeffrey Loverboy, and “sometimes absurd, always unexpected and definitely-never-boring nails. My nails are wearable sculptures, like a surreal dream on my fingertips”.

Artists have even greater license to disregard unspoken rules. Colbert wears the same thing everywhere. “The same old jeans from Diesel, which they stopped making,” she says. “And a black second-hand coat from [west London vintage dealer] Rellik, felt-ish with leathery sleeves that feels like it’s been through 1960s demonstrations.” To this, she adds jewellery — “One pin was given to me by Gilbert & George, it says ‘Fuck ’Em All’” — and finishes with battered Dr Martens. “Venice especially is insane because the city is so impractical and so it’s walking, walking, walking. People who wear heels do so at their own peril.”

Not all artists follow the no-heels advice. Dressed from head to toe in inflatable latex, Pandemonia is a living artwork created by an anonymous artist and a regular attendee at fairs since the mid-2010s. This hyper-real female character symbolises a mute parody of an art‑fair attendee.

“It’s about consumerism, allegiances,” the artist says. “I’m presenting this image — shiny, pop-y — for attention, but it’s only a balloon, it’s surface deep. Inside I am quite different.” Wherever she goes, Pandemonia draws a crowd. “It makes a mockery of the superficiality of the place.”

The costumes are “really hard work, very physical, hot or cold and it’s quite intense”. Inflatable, towering shoes restrict her to exploring at a stately tempo. Broadly, the artist says, reactions to Pandemonia all over the world suggest art fairs are “pretty conservative places”.

Frieze Seoul is young and dressed up, with more labels than you would see in Europe

For all the fabulousness on offer, most art show veterans’ advice for guests who haven’t attended before leans to the practical. Pasti suggests packing a selection of unusual jackets and keeping the rest fairly plain and interchangeable.

Sunderland-Cohen always carries a light cross-body bag big enough to fit a floor plan, a phone, a notebook and water. Xu recommends checking the weather, then checking again. Everyone, except the artist behind Pandemonia, lists flat shoes.

Ayedun, though, recommends a more mercurial approach. In the vast trade-floor hangars of art fairs, “you don’t know if it’s night, morning, where you are, which country you are in — it’s just a bunch of white walls”, she says. “You can be whatever you want to be.”