For the third year in a row, September at Eurus Gallery is dedicated to the dialogue between contemporary art and fashion. This year, the theme of the project is The Unexpected. The exhibition explores how artists interpret the world of fashion through unusual materials, unconventional forms and surprising artistic approaches — and how, through unexpected techniques, materials and technologies, traditional objects from the world of fashion — dresses or accessories — become works of art.

Among them are archival couture works by Wisharawish Akarasantisook. His unconventional approach to Thai silk has won the hearts not only of clients but also of curators: right now, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is presenting La Mode en majesté. Haute couture et tradition à la cour de Thaïlande, where a Wisharawish dress has become one of the highlights of the exhibition.

The group exhibition brings together artists already familiar to the Eurus Gallery audience as well as new names. Among the latter is Berlin- and St Petersburg-based artist Tatiana Chapurgina, the creator of porcelain objects ranging from miniature collars and garments to large-scale installations that occupy entire spaces. Her works are held in the collections of leading art institutions, including the State Hermitage Museum and the State Russian Museum.

Irina Petrakova works with clothing itself as an artistic material. In the work from her Coming Out series presented at The Unexpected, men’s sports trousers and embroidery are removed from their familiar context and transformed into a contemporary art object. an orchid — a symbol of female sexuality — is deliberately embroidered onto the crotch of a distinctly masculine garment, a pair of fake Adidas training trousers. This unexpected juxtaposition challenges conventional ideas of masculinity and femininity, while the embroidery itself carries an additional meaning: conceived as a symbol of resistance, it was originally hidden inside the garment, kept invisible to the outside viewer and, importantly, close to the body of the person wearing it. The work later acquired another layer of meaning when Petrakova described it as a critique of toxic masculinity taken to an extreme.

For Maria Lysenko Zakioso, the unexpected begins with scale. Her Mom’s Necklace turns one of the most familiar forms of jewellery — a pearl necklace — into a monumental object made of 33 wooden spheres, each 10 centimetres in diameter. In her other works, artificial hair, acrylic nails, fabric, clay and papier-mâché replace conventional artistic materials, exploring ideas of beauty, the body and identity.

Another piece — “Messy” table brings materials associated with fashion and the body into an entirely unexpected context. Made from repurposed textiles, the work transforms discarded fabric into a sculptural piece of furniture.

And, as always at Eurus Gallery, objects created in different media form a single space with art jewellery. Alexander Laut, with his precious object, recalls the work of seamstresses in China, translating the thimble into jewellery. Richard Wu’s Tube bracelet demonstrates how the fluidity and movement associated with couture can be transferred into the jewellery genre.

Created by Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov in collaboration with Epic Jewellery, the A Head of Time helmets were originally conceived for the artist’s solo exhibition Second Skin, held at Anna Nova Gallery in St Petersburg earlier this year. The project continued Fedotov-Fedorov’s exploration of the “second skin” — the boundary between the body and the outside world, something that can simultaneously protect, conceal and constrain. In the helmets, this idea takes on a new material form: hand-carved stone is combined with intricately engraved silver and diamonds, transforming an object traditionally associated with physical protection into a precious sculptural shell — another surface through which identity can be constructed, protected and revealed. 

Dickson Yewn brings the language of traditional Chinese culture and craftsmanship into contemporary jewellery, combining precious materials with techniques and references more commonly encountered outside conventional jewellery.

Another work by Ilya Fedotov-Fedorov, Mister Hugs (2026), explores the tension between a public persona and inner vulnerability. The soft, tactile figure stretches out its arms as if asking to be embraced, yet its exaggerated, almost theatrical gesture makes the invitation feel simultaneously comforting and slightly unsettling. Using fleece — a material associated with domestic comfort and bodily warmth — the artist contrasts the deliberately soft exterior with the rigid male body underneath. Mister Hugs exists somewhere between genuine intimacy and social performance, questioning how openly we are prepared to express vulnerability and the need for closeness.

A 2012 headpiece by Konstantin Gayday combines velvet, eagle, pheasant and heron feathers and porcupine quills with historical elements: a fragment of a late-19th-century bridal neck ornament with metallic thread, beads and cultured pearls, as well as an early-20th-century Western European bridal ornament in gilded silver.

Created in 2012, the work anticipated an approach that has since become increasingly prominent in both fashion and contemporary art: incorporating existing and historical materials into entirely new objects. Yet Gayday’s motivation was very different from today’s language of sustainability, recycling or upcycling. He collected antique textiles, vintage finds and historical decorative elements because of their beauty, rarity and individuality — materials whose history and uniqueness could not simply be reproduced. Each new headpiece was assembled from these fragments almost like a mosaic, giving objects from different periods an entirely new life and context.