Both "fashion" and "finance" each have enough meat under their belts to stir endless commentary and criticism; to be made into films centering around these lone subjects as shown in "The Devil Wears Prada" or "Wall Street."  But what would happen if you fused the two together into an art exhibit inspired by consumerism and focused on our culture's obsession with money, fame, and glamour?

This is the topic explored in an exhibit titled, "Fashion and Finance" at Pepperdine University's Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art. There are two floors filled with a wide range of pieces mostly from the 20 and 21st centuries. This isn't your typical art exhibit stocked with a few oil-on-canvases, but presents compositions that have taken the inherent creative quality found in fashion and translated it into something very special.  

Among the works are a dress made entirely out of horse hairs, vans coated in bronze, and a man's suit made from cloth and thread "literally riddled with text from [Emily Dickinson]." Artist, Lesley Dill states, "I think of words, and especially the poems of Emily Dickinson...as a kind of spiritual armor, an intervening skin between ourselves and the world."

Andy Warhol, being the obsessed man he was with money, celebrities, and fame, had two of his works up for gazing. One was his "$" painting and another was "Marilyn Monroe," his series of portraits of the infamous beauty. Despite the simplicity of Warhol's "$" painting, which simply shows a "$," it  perfectly epitomizes the "Fashion and Finance" theme.

Warhol was a man who valued money, but not in the traditional sense of its ability to purchase. He saw money as a "vehicle which could propel a person into any number of lifestyles, from the mansion dwelling businessman to the most high-profile celebrity." In turn, this painting has succeeded in portraying this ideology. The "$" portrait "...literally transforms the American dollar sign into a portrait with celebrity status." 

For anyone who is interested in this exploration of how we use money and fashion to cross classes or to transform our own identities, you cannot miss this exhibit.

"Fashion and Finance" is free to the public and will only be shown at Pepperdine University until December 5.

To reach reporter Julie Tong, click here.