A new exhibition curated by Edward Enniful looks back on the thrilling decade before smartphones, when art, music and fashion came together with a bang Mad for it … Metalheadz Sunday Sessions in the Blue Note, Hoxton Square, London, 1995-1996 Tate Britain is having its first exhibition looking back on the art and fashion photography of 1990s Britain. It does not attempt a definitive overview, instead setting out the ways in which art and fashion interconnected – a phenomenon that continues to this day. _The 90s: Art and Fashion exhibition runs at Tate Britain, London, from 8 October 2026 to 14 February 2027. Texts by Edward Enninful and Alex Farquharson_ Bob’s Full House at Bagley’s Studios, Kings Cross, 1991, by David Swindells Ask Gen Z what draws them to the 90s and the answer you typically receive is: ‘no smartphones’.
The 90s was the last offline decade. The internet existed, but it was slow and niche, a sparse new frontier rather than a pervasive infrastructure. Smartphones, social media, AI bots and behaviour-shaping algorithms were inconceivable.
Culture was consumed in physical, analogue form, often socially. People could enjoy (or embarrass) themselves without feeling an anxious awareness that images might circulate online indefinitely While certain figures came to define the decade publicly, this exhibition reflects a broader landscape of practices and voices that shaped the period, many of which operated beyond the structures of visibility at the time. This wider perspective recognises that the energy of the 90s was not concentrated in a single movement but distributed across communities, disciplines and geographies that have not always been equally represented Jarvis Cocker on the 1990s: ‘I’d moved to London and Pulp were asked to play a couple of concerts.
It felt different to before. It felt like something was happening. The weirdos were taking over.
Surely, if we all grabbed hold and worked together, we could turn the ‘9’ in 90s upside down, make it a ‘6’ – make the 60s happen all over again. We even managed to elect a Labour government and then we sat back and waited for flower power to happen all over again. But it didn’t’ Normski: ‘I had the joy of finding my likeminded people through the hip-hop, house and jungle scenes in London, and quickly realised that we were the generation who would go on to shape the future with what was handed down from our elders, growing up in a changing time in a new and very diverse population from all corners of the world.
Advances in publishing, photography and media circulation allowed fashion and art to move with greater speed and immediacy. In London this circulation was accelerated by proximity, with photographers, stylists, artists and designers operating within overlapping social and creative networks Susanne and Lutz, White Dress, Army Skirt, 1993, by Wolfgang Tillmans The raw energy of the early 90s found its way into fashion magazines such as i-D and the Face, where an eclectic cohort of editors, stylists and art directors delved into concepts of youth, identity and style in domestic and urban situations Photography became a key medium for this new kind of realism, with Nigel Shafran, Juergen Teller and Corinne Day presenting narratives of life and friendship with a casual, unfiltered documentary style characterised by natural lighting and minimal retouching .com/Bridgeman Images Vauxhall Bridge, from the series Pissing Women, 1995, by Sophy Rickett Matthew Collin: ‘When I came to work at i-D, a new generation of photographers, journalists, designers and stylists was emerging with ideas that would help to shape the cultural landscape of the decade. People turned up in the office with a thrilling portfolio or a piece of reportage from uncharted cultural territory: if it was fresh, it went on the pages.
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