Westwood | Kawakubo @ NGV International, Melbourne - A Major Fashion Design Exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria

Westwood | Kawakubo 

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 

7 December, 2025 - 19 April 2026

World's End, London (fashion house)

Vivienne Westwood (designer)

Malcolm McLaren (designer) 

Outfits from the Pirate collection, autumn–winter 1981–82 

Pillar Hall, Olympia, London, 31 March 1981

Photo © Robyn Beeche

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 5, from the Break Free collection, 

spring–summer 2024. Paris, 30 September 2023 

Image © Comme des Garçons

Model: Hannah Heise

World's End, London (fashion house)

Vivienne Westwood (designer)

Malcolm McLaren (designer) 

Outfit from the Savage collection, spring–summer 1982 

Pillar Hall, Olympia, London, 22 October 1981 

Photo © Robyn Beeche

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 28, from the 2 Dimensions collection, 

autumn–winter 2012. Paris, 3 March 2012

Image © Comme des Garçons

The NGV’s world-premiere exhibition pairs two global icons – and iconoclasts – of the fashion world for the first time, British designer VIVIENNE WESTWOOD (1941 – 2022) and Japanese designer REI KAWAKUBO (b. 1942) of Comme des Garçons. Born a year apart in different countries and cultural contexts, each brought a rule-breaking radicalism to fashion design that subverted the status quo. Today, their critically acclaimed collections are celebrated globally for questioning conventions of taste, gender and beauty, as well as challenging the very form and function of clothing.

Portrait of Katie Somerville, 

Senior Curator, Fashion and Textiles, NGV 

with VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, London (fashion house)

Vivenne Westwood (designer)

Ensemble, 1987, Harris Tweed collection, autumn-winter, 1987–88

at the announcement of Westwood | Kawakubo on display 

at NGV International 7 December 2025 to 19 April 2026

Photo: Eugene Hyland

Portrait of Danielle Whitfield, 

Curator, Fashion and Textiles, NGV 

with COMME DES GARÇONS, Tokyo (fashion house) 

Rei KAWAKUBO (designer) 

Look 9, 2012, 2 Dimensions collection, 

autumn-winter 2012–13

at the announcement of Westwood | Kawakubo on display 

at NGV International 7 December 2025 to 19 April 2026

Photo: Eugene Hyland

Through a showstopping display of more than 140 innovative and ground-breaking designs, Westwood | Kawakubo explores the convergences and divergences between these two self-taught rebels of the fashion world. The exhibition brings together important loans from international museums and private collections – including New York’s Metropolitan Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum, Palais Galliera, and the Vivienne Westwood archive – alongside 100+ outstanding works from the NGV Collection. The exhibition features more than 80 works that have recently entered the NGV Collection, including nearly 40 outstanding works recently gifted to the NGV by Comme des Garçons especially for this exhibition. 

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 28, from the 2 Dimensions collection, 

autumn–winter 2012. Paris, 3 March 2012

Image © Comme des Garçons

Model: Henna Lintukangas

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 2, from the Smaller is Stronger collection, 

autumn–winter 2025. Paris, 8 March 2025 

Image © Comme des Garçons 

Model: Mirre Sonders

Presented thematically, Westwood | Kawakubo charts the defining collections and concerns of their practices – from the mid-1970s to the present day – inviting audiences to consider the multiple ways that Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo have each rewritten fashion conventions and codes over the course of their careers. These include: the impact and influence of the punk zeitgeist of the 1970s; the reinterpretation and reinvention of historical fashion references; their experimental design methodologies and the interrogation of gender and the idealised body. Alongside fashion, the exhibition also features archival materials, photography, film and runway footage, offering audiences a deep insight into the minds and creative processes of these two legends of contemporary fashion.

Vivienne Westwood, London (fashion house)

Vivienne Westwood (designer) 

Look 49, from the Anglomania collection, 

autumn–winter 1993–94

Le Cercle Républicain, Paris, March 1993

Photo © firstVIEW 

Model: Kate Moss

Exhibition highlights include Westwood’s iconic punk ensembles from the late 1970s, popularised by London bands such as The Sex Pistols and Siousie Sioux; a romantic MacAndreas tartan gown from Westwood’s Anglomania collection (autumn-winter 1993-94), famously worn by Kate Moss on the runway; and the original version of the corseted Wedding dress first shown in the Wake Up, Cave Girl Autumn-winter 2007-08 collection and later worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and The City: The Movie.

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house) 

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 4, from the Blood and Roses collection, 

spring–summer 2015. Paris, 27 September 2014 

Image © Comme des Garçons 

Model: Andrea Hrncirova

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house) 

Rei Kawakubo (designer)

Look 1, from the Blue Witch collection, 

spring–summer 2016. Paris, 3 October 2015

Image © Comme des Garçons 

Model: Maja Brodin

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house) 

Rei Kawakubo (designer)

Look 6, from the Invisible Clothes collection, 

spring–summer 2017. Paris, 9 March 2017 

Image © Comme des Garçons 

Model: Georgia Howorth

In 2017, The Met in New York staged the exhibition, Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons: The Art of the In-Between, which opened with the pop culture phenomenon the Met Gala. The NGV exhibition features a version of the sculptural petal ensemble worn by Rihanna on the red carpet, as well as key designs from collections of those worn by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Tracee Ellis Ross. Also on display are dramatic abstract works spanning the recent decades which challenge the relationship between the body and clothing, including the playful Two Dimensions, spring-summer 2012, and the abstract forms of Invisible Clothes spring-summer 2017. Striking gingham sculptural forms from Body Meets Dress – Dress Meets Body collection (spring-summer 1997) also feature.

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house) 

Rei Kawakubo (designer)

Look 6, from the Body Meets Dress–Dress Meets Body collection, 

spring–summer 1997 

Image © Comme des Garçons

Major showstopping moments in the exhibition include a dramatic, spotlit gallery highlighting how both designers have been influenced by fashion history; Westwood’s sweeping silk taffeta ball gowns inspired by 18th century court dress are presented alongside Kawakubo’s punk interpretations in pink vinyl and rich floral jacquard. A further dynamic display juxtaposes the bold, red tartans, English tweeds, grey plaids and navy pinstripes of Kawakubo with Westwood’s iconic tailoring. Sculptural, deconstructed, cinched and exaggerated silhouettes demonstrate their exacting approaches to cutting and textile traditions.

The exhibition design presents the two distinct voices of Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo as parallel yet fundamentally unique forces in fashion. The design uses symmetry as its cornerstone concept, presenting these designers like left and right hands; symmetrical but not identical.

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 1, from the 18th Century Punk collection, 

autumn–winter 2016. Paris, 5 March 2016

Image © Comme des Garçons 

Model: Anna Cleveland

The exhibition explores Westwood and Kawakubo’s practices across five themes. Punk and Provocation considers how punk, both aesthetically and conceptually, crystallized in the early collections of each designer and has remained a touchstone, if not a design manifesto, throughout their careers. Highlight Vivienne Westwood works in this section convey some of the key aspects of punk clothing – offensive graphics, bondage trousers, distressed knitwear, tartan, leather, safety pins and chains. In dialogue, four notable works by Rei Kawakubo demonstrate the influence and ethos of punk in her practice.

World's End, London (fashion house)

Vivienne Westwood (designer)

Malcolm McLaren (designer) 

Outfit from the Nostalgia of Mud collection, 

autumn–winter 1982–83. 

Pillar Hall, Olympia, London, 24 March 1982 

Photo © Robyn Beeche

Rupture explores the unique design lexicons of Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, revealing how each have been driven by the desire to break free of convention and reinvent the rules of dress. Early highlights here include displays of Westwood’s Pirate (spring-summer 1981) and Nostalgia of Mud (autumn-winter 1983) collections that encapsulated the New Romantic and Buffalo movements of 1980s London, contrasted by recent works from Kawakubo’s Not Making Clothes collection, spring-summer 2014, which saw her negate the boundaries between body and garment.

Vivienne Westwood, London (fashion house)

Vivienne Westwood (designer) 

Fragonard, evening dress, 

from the Cut, Slash & Pull collection, 

spring–summer 1991 

116 Pall Mall, London, October 1990 

Photo © Robyn Beeche 

Model: Sara Stockbridge

Reinvention looks at the way both designers have referenced the past or looked to the future, looking to sources of inspiration that include fashion history, tailoring traditions, decorative arts and textiles. For Vivienne Westwood art history has been a constant influence, most notably in her Portrait collection (autumn-winter 1990), which featured prints of famous eighteenth century paintings by Boucher and Fragonard emblazoned on the corsetry. For Rei Kawakubo, breaking the rules of taste has resulted in collections that bring together clashing pattern, ruffles and frills.

The Body: Freedom and Restraint explores the ways in which both Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo have consistently challenged existing conventions related to ideal and idealised female bodies and rallied against objectification. Beginning with iconic works from Westwood’s Erotic Zones collection (spring-summer 1995) and Kawakubo’s The Future of Silhouette (autumn-winter 2017-18), this section considers the ways in which both designers have redefined the female body.

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house)

Rei Kawakubo (designer) 

Look 13, from the Uncertain Future collection, 

spring–summer 2025. Paris, 28 September 2024 

Image © Comme des Garçons

Model: Astrid Wagemakers

The final section of the exhibition, The Power of Clothes, considers fashion as a tool to convey a message, personal or political, and the powerful individual female voice. It concludes with recent Westwood collections – Propaganda (autumn-winter 2025) and Chaos Point (autumn-winter 2008-09) – that utilise clothing and fabrics as a canvas for messaging about the environment, social inequity of political freedoms in an echo of her early punk days. These are seen in context with the self-reflective power of Kawakubo’s recent collections (Uncertain Future, spring-summer 2025) which express her emotional response to the state of the world.

Portrait of Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV 

with VIVIENNE WESTWOOD, London (fashion house)

Vivenne Westwood (designer)

Gown, 1998, Dressed to Scale collection, autumn-winter 1998-99 

at the announcement of Westwood | Kawakubo on display 

at NGV International 7 December 2025 to 19 April 2026

Photo: Eugene Hyland

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV said: ‘This exhibition celebrates two leading female fashion designers from different cultural backgrounds, who both had strong creative spirits and pushed boundaries. Through more than 140 designs from the NGV Collection and key international loans, Westwood | Kawakubo invites audiences to reflect on the enduring legacies of these groundbreaking designers and contemplate the ways in which fashion can be a vehicle for self-expression and freedom."

The exhibition will be accompanied by an ambitious world-first publication, also titled Westwood | Kawakubo, exploring the intersecting histories of Westwood and Kawakubo with new reflections from industry experts including Jane Mulvaugh, Valerie Steele, Stephen Jones, Akiko Fukai and Dame Zandra Rhodes.

FASHION DESIGNER VIVIENNE WESTWOOD

Vivienne Isabel Swire was born in Glossop, Derbyshire on 8 April 1941. In 1961, she married Derek Westwood, later divorcing and partnering with Malcolm McLaren. The couple became creative collaborators and proprietors of a retail outlet at 430 Kings Road Chelsea, going on to have a radical influence on international fashion over the next decade. Westwood and McLaren stocked the store with a combination of their own designs and purchased items, changing the name every few years to reflect the tenor of the clothing. Over subsequent years the store became; Let it Rock (1971), Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die (1972), Sex (1974), Seditionaries (1977) and World’s End (1980).  

In 1980, Vivienne Westwood and Malcom McLaren’s interests began to diverge and by 1984 Vivienne Westwood was designing independently, moving her business to Italy for production with her new business partner Carlo d’Amario. Over the next two decades, Vivienne Westwood redefined her practice, embracing and reimagining Saville Row tailoring techniques and British textiles. She also began conducting regular archive research of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and The Wallace Collection. In 1990 she launched her first full menswear collection and structured her business into a variety of labels, including Gold Label and its diffusion line, Red Label. Twice-awarded British Designer of the Year, in 1992 Vivienne Westwood was granted an OBE, and in 2006, a DBE. Vivienne Westwood died in London on 29 December 2022.

FASHION DESIGNER REI KAWAKUBO

Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo was born in Tokyo in 1942 and graduated from Keio University in 1964 with a degree in Literature and Fine Art. After working first as a stylist, she began designing her own clothes and established Comme des Garçons in 1969. The label was incorporated in 1973, coinciding with the presentation of her first major women’s collection. Despite her lack of formal training, Rei Kawakubo courted critical and commercial success. A new Tokyo boutique was launched in 1975, followed by a dedicated menswear line, Homme Comme des Garçons, in 1978. Rei Kawakubo debuted on the Paris runway three years later, in 1981, where she continues to show her two main collections twice-yearly. Her work is known for its conceptual and avant-garde leanings, and for a groundbreaking approach to form and function. Many subsequent projects and ready-to-wear lines have since been introduced and include knitwear, furniture and perfume. 

Rei Kawakubo’s work has been featured by museums in solo and group exhibitions and she has received numerous honours including the Mainichi Fashion Award in 1983 and 1988, Fashion Group Night of the Stars Award in 1986, the French Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993 and, most recently, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design Excellence in Design Award in 2000. In 2017, her work was the subject of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition, Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons: The Art of the In-Between.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA

NGV International, 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne, 3004 VIC

www.ngv.vic.gov.au

The Picasso Century @ NGV, Melbourne - National Gallery of Victoria

The Picasso Century

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

10 June – 9 October 2022

The world-premiere Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition, The Picasso Century, charts the extraordinary career of Pablo Picasso in dialogue with the many artists, poets and intellectuals with whom he intercepted and interacted throughout the 20th century, including Guillaume Apollinaire, Georges Braque, Salvador Dalí, Alberto Giacometti, Françoise Gilot, Valentine Hugo, Marie Laurencin, Dora Maar, André Masson, Henri Matisse, Dorothea Tanning and Gertrude Stein.

Exclusively developed for the NGV by the Centre Pompidou and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, the exhibition features over 80 works by Picasso alongside over 100 works by more than 60 of his contemporaries, drawn from French national collections, as well as the NGV Collection. Audiences will also have the opportunity to discover a rich selection of works by artists rarely exhibited in Australia, including Natalia Goncharova, Julio González, Wifredo Lam, Suzanne Valadon and Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.

Curated by noted scholar of 20th century painting Didier Ottinger, Deputy Director of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, The Picasso Century examines the diverse influences, encounters and collaborative relationships that steered Picasso through many distinct artistic periods, such as his Blue Period, Cubism and Surrealism, and draws lines between Picasso’s famous creations and the world around him.

By exploring Picasso’s career through his personal, artistic and intellectual engagement with his peers, the exhibition provides a unique insight into the artistic legacy of one of the 20th century’s most influential and celebrated artists, as well as the community of artists from which he emerged.

Victoria’s Minister for Creative Industries Danny Pearson said: ‘The Picasso Century brings together master works from across Picasso’s career, alongside those from other leading artists and innovators of the time. This world-premiere Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition will be an absolute treat for art lovers from across Victoria and beyond, and a massive drawcard to our creative state this winter.’

Laurent Le Bon, President, Centre Pompidou, said ‘Picasso reunited at last with Australia and his fellow accomplices and travellers. I am delighted with this collaboration between two French institutions and the National Gallery of Victoria: this exceptional partnership will allow the Australian public to discover Picasso’s paintings, sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and the works of the artists with whom he never ceased to interact. I wish to extend a warm thank you to all those who have made this magnificent project possible.’

Cécile Debray, President, Musée national Picasso-Paris, said: ‘The Picasso Century offers an original, broad approach that allows us to grasp the artist’s career in his artistic and cultural context, from his formative years to his posterity. It thus offers an astonishing journey through the Parisian and cosmopolitan art scene of the 20th century. A Picasso, no longer a genius “ex-nihilo” but an artist in the world, with his friendships with poets, cubists, surrealists, his political commitments, his love affairs with artists, his circles of disciples and admirers.’

‘I am delighted by this partnership with the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, which testifies to the ties of friendship and proximity between France and Australia, but also that the French museums participating in this major exhibition have the opportunity to be ambassadors of French heritage and of a historic artistic scene that was the foundation of Western modernity.’

Tony Ellwood AM, Director, NGV, said: ‘This exhibition offers visitors an extraordinary insight into the development of modern art and the preeminent figure at its centre, Pablo Picasso. Through more than 170 works of art – including many that have never been seen in Australia – audiences will come to appreciate the many ways in which Picasso influenced – and was influenced by – the artistic community that surrounded him.’

Fifteen thematic sections organise The Picasso Century, which trace the many distinct periods that shaped the artist’s career over more than seven decades, while also situating his work within a broader artistic and geographical context. Each exhibition section provides a nuanced perspective on a rich century of artistic experiment, in which Picasso stands prominently among many innovators.

The beginning of the exhibition explores Picasso’s formative years, which encapsulate significant artistic developments, most notably Cubism, the development of which Picasso led with Georges Braque. Considered by many the ‘experiment’ that most radically transformed 20th century art, Cubism saw Western art move away from representing likeness and, among many innovations, introduced multiple and simultaneous perspectives into a composition, resulting in the style’s recognisable fragmented imagery.

The Picasso Century also examines Picasso’s place within the multicultural crucible that was inter-war Paris, and his interaction with other artists and intellectuals including André Breton, Georges Bataille, Aimé Césaire, Alberto Giacometti and Gertrude Stein. The exhibition is particularly rich with works from Picasso’s Surrealist period, presented alongside works by artists including Kay Sage, Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico and André Masson.

The final sections of the exhibition explore Picasso’s work in an increasingly international art world post-1945 and examine the contested artistic output towards the end of his career. His work of the 1950s and 1960s are positioned alongside later generations of painters, including Francis Bacon and Willem de Kooning.

The inevitable question of Picasso’s legacy in the 21st century is posed through the inclusion of the 2009 video work I see a woman crying (Weeping Woman), Tate Liverpool by Rineke Dijkstra. This engaging contemporary work invites reflection on Picasso’s position as a point of reference for all who seek to understand the history of 20th century art.

Coinciding with The Picasso Century is a free NGV Kids exhibition titled Making Art: Imagine everything is real featuring a range of hands-on activities and multimedia experiences inspired by methods of working invented by some of the leading European artists included in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition. While learning about some of the leading artists of the twentieth century in Europe, children make their own surprising works as they explore collage techniques, write poetry and play surrealist games and turn everyday materials into large-scale sculptures.

Exhibition organised by the Centre Pompidou, Paris, the Musée national Picasso-Paris, and the National Gallery of Victoria.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA - NVG

180 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne VIC 3006 

www.ngv.vic.gov.au

________________

Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia - NGV International, St Kilda

Unexpected Pleasures: The Art and Design of Contemporary Jewellery
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 
21 April - 26 August 2012

The exhibition explores the essential meanings of jewellery, bypassing traditional perceptions and instead tracing the radical experiments of contemporary jewellers who have challenged the conventions of jewellery design.

The exhibition is curated through a number of themes:  Worn Out – celebrating the experience of wearing jewellery; Linking Links – looking at the ways in which ‘meaning’ and narratives are invested and expressed through sub-themes such as Social Expressions and Creative Systems, and; A Fine Line – offering insight into the origins of contemporary jewellery today, highlighting key instigators of the Contemporary Jewellery Movement that started in the late 1970s.

Among the exhibited artists is the Danish artist Camilla Prasch.

Camilla Prasch
MEGA 2009
red dyed snap fasteness, nylon thread, silicone discs
31 x 11 cm
Collection of the artist
© Camilla Prasch
Photo : Dorte Krogh

Each theme within the exhibition provides an outline of current thinking and offers a unique view on how people use and interact with objects, through which design and production processes come to light. Photography in this context becomes a vital instrument for expressing the ‘wearability’ and the performative aspects of jewellery, and a selection of photographic works are also included in the exhibition.

New techniques and experimentation continue to question the relevance of preciousness, highlighting the shifting values from material worth to the personal associations that jewellery holds. The exhibition celebrates jewellery from the point of view of both the maker and the wearer. It considers the pleasures of wearing jewellery and the many meanings associated with jewellery which are at times unpredictable and, in turn, unexpected.

Unexpected Pleasures displays over 200 works by important Australian and international contemporary jewellers who have pushed conceptual and material boundaries within their practices.

Gerard Vaughan, Director, NGV said: “This is a remarkable and exciting exhibition, brilliantly installed in the Gallery’s newly redeveloped Contemporary Exhibitions space at NGV International.”

This Design Museum, London touring exhibition is curated by Guest Curator and Melbourne jeweller Susan Cohn, and is complemented by a selection of NGV Collection works and private loans.

National Gallery of Victoria
NGV International
180 St Kilda Road
Museum's website: www.ngv.vic.gov.au