The past few years saw fashion getting its due as art in unprecedented ways, with respect for the genre extending past conceptual masterworks that only a select few would deem wearable, to pieces that are attainable and thereby profitable for their creators. Within the year, we’ve seen a Hanes T-shirt and Champion hoodie on view at MoMA, and a Comme des Garçons Play pop up boutique-as-gift-shop at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. All the while, a rise in experiential boutiques that aim  to get people to enter stores and look up from their phones has re-infused the retail experience with boundary-breaking artistry.

Eckhaus Latta: Possessed is the next logical step in this progression. Currently on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art, it is very literally one-part gallery, one-part shop, one-part examination of how we shop. Nominally, it puts the spotlight on Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, who produce a forward-thinking fashion line. But considering their backgrounds (textile design and sculpture, respectively) and unconventional approach to designing (they’re bicoastal) and casting (they’ve included non-models from the start), it’s hardly surprising that they took a step back to examine the commercial cycle they participate in.

So what do you get from what is essentially Eckhaus Latta x Whitney Museum? A corner of the Whitney’s ground floor, admission free, with imagined but plausible advertising artwork followed by a working boutique filled with exclusive designs, and a dark room filled with security footage of their studio, as well as the exhibition’s own shopping space. The clothing is striking, the indulgence inevitable, and the overall experience vaguely unsettling. On a recent evening, beside a colorful $7,200 “plastic bag sweater,” a man feigned popping a blemish in a one-way mirror as his companion observed from the other side. They didn’t purchase anything from the shop, but they did get photos of the experience.

Eckhaus Latta: Possessed is on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art through October 8, with merchandise for purchase until it sells out.