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

Paolo Roversi @ Pace Gallery, NYC - "Along the Way" Focused Retrospective Exhibition (early 1990s - present)

Paolo Roversi: Along the Way

Pace Gallery, New York 

September 12 – October 25, 2025

Paolo Roversi 

Natalia, Paris, 2003

© Paolo Roversi, courtesy Pace Gallery

Pace presents an exhibition of work by photographer PAOLO ROVERSI at its 508 West 25th Street gallery in New York. Opening on September 12, during New York Fashion Week, and running through October 25, this focused retrospective will feature works produced by Paolo Roversi between the early 1990s and the present, highlighting the artist’s relationships with his many collaborators in the fashion industry.

Roversi’s upcoming exhibition with Pace in New York—his first solo show with the gallery since 2019—will present an overview of his storied career through a selection of photographs created over the past 35 years.“Every portrait is a meeting, an exchange, a mutual intimate confession,” Paolo Roversi has said of his work. The show will shed light on Roversi’s legacy as the artist behind some of the most iconic fashion images of our time.

Drawing inspiration from the work of August Sander, Robert Frank, and Diane Arbus, Paolo Roversi developed a distinctive style that is deeply influenced by the Byzantine architecture and rich cultural history of his birthplace, Ravenna, Italy. “Paolo's photography is timeless,” Sylvie Lécallier, curator Roversi’s 2024 exhibition at the Palais Galliera in Paris, said in an interview last year. “It is detached from the spirit of the times, from the ephemeral trends of fashion. It is located both at the heart of fashion and at the edge.”

Made with Polaroid film and mostly taken in his Parisian studio, Roversi's dreamlike, enigmatic images are imbued with a classical sensibility. His studio, he has said, “is a place for the chance, the dream, the imaginary to prevail. I give these forces as much space as I can.”

In addition to his collaborators in the fashion world, Polo Roversi has recently joined forces with his friend and fellow artist Sheila Hicks. For these works, which will figure in Pace’s exhibition, no discussion is had between the two artists regarding a direction for the final work, each knowing and respecting the other’s practice.

Born in Ravenna, Italy in 1947, Paolo Roversi discovered his passion for photography during a 1964 family holiday in Spain— upon his return from the trip, he built a darkroom in the basement of his home. He began his career in 1970, taking photojournalism assignments from the Associated Press. In 1973, at the invitation of photographer and ELLE art director Peter Knapp, Paolo Roversi moved to Paris, where he has lived and worked ever since. After a nine-month period assisting British photographer Lawrence Sackmann, whom he cites as an influential teacher, Paolo Roversi started shooting independently with small commissions for ELLE and the band Depeche Mode, gaining wider recognition with a Dior beauty campaign in 1980 and ultimately forging his reputation as one of the industry's leading photographers by the mid- 1980s. As model Guinevere van Seenus, who has worked with Roversi for nearly three decades, has said, “Having your portrait taken is more than just looking at the camera, [Paolo] creates the space for the person to [emerge]."

Today, Paolo Roversi’s work can be found in museum collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Getty Museum in Los Angeles; and the National Portrait Gallery in London. He has had major exhibitions around the world—in recent years, at the Museo d'Arte della città di Ravenna, Palazzo Reale in Milan, the Palais Galliera in Paris, the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow, and Dallas Contemporary in Texas—and has published numerous books, including Paolo Roversi: Palais Galliera (2024), Lettres sur la lumière, with philosopher Emanuele Coccia (Gallimard, 2024), Des Oiseaux (Éditions Xavier Barral, 2023), Paolo Roversi – Studio Luce (Museo d'Arte della città di Ravenna, 2020), Natalia (Stromboli, 2018), and Nudi (Stromboli, 1999).

PACE NEW YORK

508 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Africa Fashion @ Portland Art Museum

Africa Fashion

Portland Art Museum

November 18, 2023 – February 18, 2024

Models holding hands, Lagos, Nigeria, 2019 by Stephen Tayo

Courtesy Lagos Fashion Week

Sanlé Sory 'Je Vais Décoller, 1977' 

© Sanlé Sory / Tezeta. Courtesy David Hill Gallery

Self-portrait, Gouled Ahmed, Addis Foam, Ethiopia

Mbeuk Idourrou collection, Imane Ayissi, Paris 

Autumn/Winter 2019. 

Photo: Fabrice Malard / Courtesy of Imane Ayissi

Africa Fashion opens at the Portland Art Museum after acclaimed runs at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and the Brooklyn Museum. This first-of-its-kind exhibition, making its only West Coast stop at PAM, honors the irresistible creativity, ingenuity, and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashions. Garments and textiles dating from the mid-twentieth century to the present day, contextualized by a range of cultural touchstones such as Drum magazines, Fela Kuti and Miriam Makeba record albums, and studio photography from Sanlé Sory, celebrate the transformative and liberatory power of self-fashioning. The New Yorker’s art critic Hilton Als called Africa Fashion a “vital and necessary exhibition.”

The exuberance and cosmopolitan nature of the contemporary African fashion scene unfolds through more than 50 outfits designed by over 40 designers hailing from 21 countries, who are shifting the geography of the global fashion world. Elegant minimalist garments by Mmusomaxwell, Katush, and Moshions push back on stereotypes that African fashions are exclusively colorful and brightly patterned; knitwear by Maxhosa echoes traditional Xhosa beadwork patterns; shimmering silk and layers of raffia combine in a fuchsia pink couture outfit by Imane Ayissi; and striking ensembles by Selly Raby Kane and Bull Doff reference Afrofuturism.

“Africa Fashion means the past, the future and the present at the same time,” said fashion designer Artsi, founder of Moroccan design house Maison ArtC. “The joy of life and the joy of colour is completely different and very particular to the continent. It’s a language of heritage, it’s a language of DNA, it’s a language of memories.” 

Design by Chris Seydou 

© Nabil Zorkot

Kofi Ansah 'Indigo' Couture 1997 - Narh & Linda 

Photo © 1997 Eric Don-Arthur www.EricDonArthur.com

Alchemy collection, Thebe Magugu, 

Johannesburg, South Africa, Autumn/Winter 2021 

Photography: Tatenda Chidora

Styling + Set: Chloe Andrea Welgemoed

Model: Sio

Africa Fashion employs a cross-cultural and cross-continental approach throughout the exhibition galleries, centering multiple and varied African voices and perspectives. Starting with the African independence and the liberation years that sparked a radical political and social reordering across the continent, the exhibition explores how fashion, alongside music and the visual arts, formed a key part of Africa’s cultural renaissance, laying the foundation for today’s fashion revolution. A section on textiles presents vintage woven kente cloth alongside printed kanga cloths and Dutch Wax cottons, showing how the making and wearing of traditional textiles in the moment of independence became a strategic political act.

During this period, groundbreaking designers worked fluidly both on the continent and internationally. Garments included in the exhibition by vanguard creatives Alphadi (b.1957), Kofi Ansah (1951-2014), Naïma Bennis (1940-2008), Shade Thomas-Fahm (b.1933), and Chris Seydou (1949-1994), embody the artistic expression of the cultural renaissance.

“I feel like there’s so many facets of what we’ve been through as a continent that people don’t actually understand,” said South African designer Thebe Magugu. “Now more than ever, African designers are taking charge of their own narrative and telling people authentic stories, not the imagined utopias.”

'Chasing Evil' collection, IAMISIGO, Kenya, 

Autumn/Winter 2020

Courtesy IAMISIGO 

Photo: Maganga Mwagogo

DAKALA CLOTH ensemble, 

'Who Knew' collection, 

Abuja, Nigeria, Spring/Summer 2019

Image courtesy Nkwo Onwuka 

© Kola Oshalusi

The sophisticated fashions at the heart of Africa Fashion simultaneously celebrate long-held traditions of cultural self-expression through clothing and the significant contributions of contemporary designers of African descent to the international fashion scene.

Portland’s creative community also takes a turn on the catwalk for this presentation of Africa Fashion as well. Togo-born designer Komi Jean Pierre Nugloze of N’Kossi Couture is included in the exhibition, showcasing two of his contemporary designs. And Portland-based LEVER Architecture collaborated with the Museum on an innovative exhibition design, including a single organic display platform that welcomes visitors to admire the contemporary garments from all angles.

Africa Fashion is accompanied by a catalog published by V&A Publishing.

Africa Fashion - Exhibition book

Christine Checinska (Editor)

Published by V&A

224 pages

ISBN : 9781838510275

Curated by the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Christine Checinska, Ph.D., Senior Curator of African and Diaspora Textiles and Fashion, with Project Curator Elisabeth Murray; curated for Portland by Julia Dolan, Ph.D., The Minor White Senior Curator of Photography.

PORTLAND ART MUSEUM

1219 SW Park Avenue Portland, OR 97205

www.portlandartmuseum.org

GOLD, Les ors d’Yves Saint Laurent @ Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris

GOLD. Les ors d'Yves Saint Laurent

Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris

14 octobre 2022 — 14 mai 2023

« J’aime l’or, c’est une couleur magique ;

pour le reflet d’une femme, c’est la couleur du soleil. »

 

© David Bailey / Vogue Paris

Robe du soir longue en paillettes or incrustée de pierreries multicolores.

Collection haute couture automne — hiver 1966

2022 marque la célébration des 60 ans de la première collection Yves Saint Laurent sous son propre nom ainsi que les 5 ans d’existence du Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris. À ces occasions, l’exposition anniversaire GOLD explore les touches d’or qui ont traversé l’oeuvre du couturier.

Sous le commissariat d’Elsa Janssen, directrice du musée depuis mars 2022, en association avec l’équipe scientifique du musée et avec la complicité artistique d’Anna Klossowski*, l’exposition GOLD, Les ors d’Yves Saint Laurent explore le doré à travers une quarantaine de robes haute couture et prêt-à-porter, une sélection d’accessoires, d’objets et des vitrines composées entièrement de bijoux, apparats indispensables à la silhouette Yves Saint Laurent.

Des tout premiers boutons ponctuant les cabans aux robes entièrement dorées, aucune collection n’échappe à la touche « or » du couturier. Toutes matières se prêtent à ces éclats : brocarts, dentelles, lamés, sequins, cuirs, broderies… Tissus, bijoux, parfum, l’or scintille...

« Du noir moderne. Je l’allume toujours avec de l’or, en boutons, en ceinture, en chaînes. »

Qu’il s’agisse des souvenirs ensoleillés d’Oran, de Marrakech, d’objets collectionnés par Pierre Bergé et Yves Saint Laurent, des accessoires créés par Loulou de la Falaise, le doré a été une source d’inspiration artistique tout au long de sa carrière.

« Le soir doit briller, sans cela il serait un peu ridicule… »

Le parcours chrono-thématique fait écho à la solarité du personnage d’Yves Saint Laurent, et révèle l’éblouissante diversité des ornements, la richesse des tissus, la brillance des matériaux.

De la robe-bijou réalisée pour la collection automne-hiver de 1966 et photographiée par David Bailey aux robes pailletées portées par Zizi Jeanmaire ou Catherine Deneuve, c’est tour à tour l’exaltation du pouvoir des femmes, les années Palace et l’esprit de fête qui sont convoqués.

En résonance avec les créations d’Yves Saint Laurent, le musée invite le plasticien belge Johan Creten à exposer cinq oeuvres rappelant combien l'or inspire de tous temps les artistes.

* Commissaire d’expositions et historienne de l’art, Anna Klossowski co-fonde en 2015 « We Do Not Work Alone ». Fille de Loulou de La Falaise et filleule d’Yves Saint Laurent, elle entretient un lien tout particulier avec le Musée Yves Saint Laurent.

ÉQUIPE CURATORIALE

COMMISSAIRE GÉNÉRALE : Elsa JANSSEN

COMMISSARIAT SCIENTIFIQUE

MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT PARIS

Alice COULON-SAILLARD, chargée des collections photographiques, audiovisuelles et archives presse

Domitille EBLE, chargée des collections arts graphiques

Judith LAMAS, chargée des collections textiles et accessoires

Sylvie MAROT, chargée de mission conservation

COMITÉ ARTISTIQUE

Anna KLOSSOWSKI

Valérie WEILL

SCÉNOGRAPHIE : Jasmin OEZCEBI

MUSÉE YVES SAINT LAURENT PARIS

5 avenue Marceau, 75116 Paris

museeyslparis.com

The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion @ Saatchi Gallery, London - Curated by Antwaun Sargent

The New Black Vanguard: 

Photography between Art and Fashion

Curated by Antwaun Sargent

Saatchi Gallery, London

28 October 2022 – 22 January 2023

TYLER MITCHELL

Untitled (Hijab Couture), New York, 2019

From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

© Tyler Mitchell

DANA SCRUGGS

Fire on the Beach, 2019

From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

© Dana Scruggs

JAMAL NXEDLANA

Johannesburg, 2019

From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

© Jamal Nxedlana

Saatchi Gallery presents The New Black Vanguard: Photography between Art and Fashion, a ground breaking exhibition featuring 15 international Black photographers contributing to a new vision of the Black figure and reframing representation in art and fashion. This exhibition is a celebration of Black creativity both in-front of and behind the camera. Featured works include Black stylists, models, make-up artists and creative directors who are bringing a radical new set of references and experiences to image making. This exhibition is organized by Aperture.

The New Black Vanguard is curated by American writer and critic Antwaun Sargent who explores a new aesthetic of Black portraiture while examining the cross-pollination between art, fashion, and culture in the making of images.

Antwaun Sargent adds, "This exhibition is an exploration of this generation's Black image makers who are bringing fresh perspective to photography. Image by image, they have created a loose global network around their art that powerfully centres identity, community and desire. The artists in this show profoundly reanimate the possibilities of contemporary photography."

Featured Photographers: Campbell Addy, Quil Lemons, Daniel Obasi, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Namsa Leuba, Ruth Ossai, Micaiah Carter, Renell Medrano, Adrienne Raquel, Awol Erizku, Tyler Mitchell, Dana Scruggs, Nadine Ijewere, Jamal Nxedlana, Stephen Tayo.

NADINE IJEWERE

Untitled, 2018

From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

© Nadine Ijewere, for Garage magazine

“The New Black Vanguard means a lot to me. It’s an important milestone in history where the work of young black artists have been curated beautifully and published in a book. It’s a dream for this show to be exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery in London. This represents progress and more boundaries being removed. London is my home, I still remember school trips to the Saatchi! Now we are here, together, telling our stories!”– Nadine Ijewere, Photographer

CAMPBELL ADDY

Adut Akech, 2019

From The New Black Vanguard (Aperture, 2019)

© Campbell Addy

“Many moons ago, as a newly graduated student, Antwaun Sargent came to me to talk about the experiences in the industry and what's needed. Speaking about the book he hopes to create - I implored him and said "if only I had seen a book like that when I was younger, a project of profound joy and happiness, that showcased Blackness in its variety in visual media. Maybe then it wouldn't have been such a struggle for me to just imagine myself as one of those artists." Now seeing what The New Black Vanguard has done, and it's evolution through many cities, brings me so much happiness. As I know there is a young creative from a similar background to that of the exhibiting artists that is going to feel seen and feel acknowledged. Who may also feel challenged to create work! So it brings me profound joy and immense pride, that it is also going to be in London – in the same city that Antwaun and I met to talk about said book – many, many years ago. This moment in itself feels incredibly full circle.” – Campbell Addy, Photographer

The New Black Vanguard presents artists whose vibrant portraits and conceptual images fuse the genres of art and fashion photography in ways that break down long-established boundaries. Their work has been widely presented in traditional lifestyle magazines, ad campaigns, and museums, as well as on thier individual social media channels; infusing the contemporary visual vocabulary around beauty and the body with new vitality and substance.

The images open up conversations around the representation of the Black body and Black lives as subject matter. Collectively, the works celebrate Black creativity. Seeking to challenge the idea that Blackness is homogenous, the works serve as a form of visual activism delivered by emerging talents who are creating photography in vastly different contexts — be it in New York or Johannesburg, Lagos or London. The results — often made in collaboration with Black stylists and fashion designers — present new perspectives on the medium of photography and the notions of race, beauty, gender and power.

This exhibition includes selected works from these ground breaking contemporary photographers, as well as a salon wall presentation of images created by other young Black photographers contributing to this movement. Vitrines of publications, past and present, contextualise these images and chart the history of inclusion, and exclusion, in the creation of the Black commercial image. The exhibition proposes a brilliantly re-envisioned future.

SAATCHI GALLERY

Duke of York's HQ, King's Rd, Chelsea, London SW3 4RY

www.saatchigallery.com

Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Collection of Peter Fetterman – Phillips Online Auction

Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Collection of Peter Fetterman
Phillips online auction
June 18 – 25, 2020

SARAH MOON

Fashion 10 (N.Y. Times), 1998

Estimate: $20,000 – 30,000

Photo © Sarah Moon, Courtesy of Phillips

Phillips announces Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Collection of Peter Fetterman, an exclusive online auction that celebrates a century of fashion photography, tracing the history of women’s fashion through 64 quintessential images spanning from the 1920s to today. Drawn from the collection of esteemed gallerist and collector Peter Fetterman, Tailor-Made includes work by legendary fashion photographers Lillian Bassman, Sarah Moon, Sheila Metzner, Gordon Parks, Ormond Gigli, William Klein, and Horst P. Horst, among many others. The sale will be live to bidders worldwide June 18 - 25 on Phillips.com. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Equal Justice Initiative to help further their mission to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the US, and to challenge racial and economic injustice, and to protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable people in American society.

GORDON PARKS

James Galanos Fashion, Hollywood, California, 1961

Estimate: $5,000 – 7,000

Photo © Gordon Parks, Courtesy of Phillips

For more than 30 years, Peter Fetterman has collected and championed the work of the photographers represented in this sale, with many of them becoming close personal friends. “While the essence of fashion is beauty and dreams,” states Peter Fetterman, “these photographers taught me so much about the context in which their images were made. The photographers represented here shaped my eye and my taste, for which I owe them all a great debt. Further, in the context of rampant injustice now being foregrounded in this country, I’m pleased to support the Equal Justice Initiative whose work I deeply admire.”

Sarah Krueger, Head of the Photographs Department in New York, states: “It is a pleasure to partner once again with Peter Fetterman on a sale of such exciting material. While fashion photography is a regular presence in our auctions, it is a new and entirely thrilling experience to work with a collection like this, assembled over the years with such singular focus and flare.”

Fashion photography has long been a driver of innovation in the medium, both technically and aesthetically, and this depth and breadth of creativity is demonstrated throughout Tailor-Made.

Highlighting the sale are works by Sarah Moon, whose bold, impressionistic use of color and deft manipulation of light and movement result in images that defy expectations. Sheila Metzner is another of fashion photography’s iconoclasts, and her Campidoglio plays with scale and movement within a setting that is simultaneously classical and surreal. Lillian Bassman rounds out this trio of women photographers for whom mood, atmosphere, and gesture embody elegance and style.

SARAH MOON

Fashion 4, Yohji Yamamoto, 1996

Estimate: $40,000 – 60,000

Photo © Sarah Moon, Courtesy of Phillips

SHEILA METZNER

Campidoglio, 1986

Estimate: $12,000 – 18,000

Photo © Sheila Metzner, Courtesy of Phillips

LILLIAN BASSMAN

More Fashion Mileage Per Dress, Barbara Vaughn, 

Harper's Bazaar, New York, 1954

Estimate: $12,000 – 18,000

Photo © Lillian Bassman, Courtesy of Phillips

Driven to create ever-new imagery to keep pace with the evolving styles, photographers continually created new modes and innovative ways to showcase fashion. Melvin Sokolsky placed his models in bubbles on location in New York and Paris, creating iconic images of mid-century technology and culture, while Ormond Gigli surmounted the many logistical and technical challenges in making his instantly recognizable Models in the Windows, New York City.

ORMOND GIGLI

Girls in the Windows, New York City, 1960

Estimate $30,000 – 50,000

Photo © Ormond Gigli, Courtesy of Phillips

William Klein abandoned the controlled confines of the studio to make images that have more in common with his street work than conventional fashion photography. Jerry Schatzberg and Gordon Parks, who both worked in cinema, bring a sense of movement and narrative to their imagery. While Georges Dambier, Norman Parkinson, Brian Duffy, and William Helburn create impossibly elegant images of modern women moving through the metropolis.

The photographs in Tailor-Made: Fashion Photographs from the Peter Fetterman Collection demonstrate their makers’ expansive understanding of what makes a great, compelling, and enduring fashion photograph, and the auction offers collectors a unique opportunity to acquire works from this remarkable collection. 

*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer’s premium.

PHILLIPS NEW YORK - 450 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10022
PHILLIPS LONDON - 30 Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6EX
PHILLIPS HONG KONG - 14/F St. George’s Building, 2 Ice House Street, Central Hong Kong
PHILLIPS GENEVA - Hôtel La Réserve, 301 Route de Lausanne, Geneva

www.phillips.com

Erwin Blumenfeld in Color @ Foam, Amsterdam - His New York Years

Erwin Blumenfeld in Color
His New York Years
Foam, Amsterdam
15 February - 14 April 2019

The German fashion photographer Erwin Blumenfeld (1897-1969) is one of the most celebrated and best-paid fashion photographers of his time. He was mostly known for his oeuvre in black and white, but the exhibition in Foam focuses on the color photography he made in his period in New York (1941-1960) which brought him worldwide recognition. The unique style of self-taught Erwin Blumenfeld has been a major influence on fashion photography in magazines such as Harper's Bazaar and Vogue. Foam displays some eighty color prints, a number of vintages from his periods in Amsterdam and Paris in black and white, original magazines and some of his experimental fashion films.

Erwin Blumenfeld was born in Germany. In 1918 he moved, then a painter and enthusiastic photographer, to the Netherlands to marry the Dutch Lena Citroen, the niece of his good friend and artist Paul Citroen. In Amsterdam he opens Fox Leather Goods, a leather goods store on one of the main shopping streets in the city center. When he discovers a dark room in the shop, he turns back to photography and starts experimenting. He exhibits the portraits he shoots in the window of his shop. The photos quickly become more popular than his leather goods. In 1936 his business goes bankrupt and he decides to venture to in Paris, the city of fashion and arts. In the first years of his career in fashion photography in Paris, he only works in black and white. The female nude is his favorite subject, as for many photographers at the time. The female body forms the core of his experiments with photographic techniques such as double exposure, distortion, solarization and chemical effects. But from the moment color photography is possible, he transforms his original compositions in black and white into color. With a kaleidoscopic oeuvre as a result.

In 1941 Erwin Blumenfeld fled the occupation in France with his family. The move also leads to a transition from the black and white photographs he made in Paris to an oeuvre in color. Arriving in New York, he immediately starts working for Harper's Bazaar, after which he would work with Vogue for a long time from 1944 onwards. His unique aesthetic of forms and colors that he created after his arrival in New York makes him one of the most original fashion photographers of his time. Despite the frivolity of fashion, he distinguishes himself by the surreal way he depicts the hidden nature of his subjects; the goal of his quest is not realism, but the mystery of reality. He understood that it was not about showing beautiful clothes, but about creating iconic images. He described his practice as 'smuggling art' into the territory of fashion. In addition to the experimental photographic techniques that he applied, he was also one of the first to think beyond the frame of the photo and make fashion films. His work became known worldwide, partly because of the many innovative covers he shot, of unprecedented graphical quality, in which his photographs were shown to their full potential.

FOAM
Keizersgracht 609, 1017 DS Amsterdam
www.foam.org

Karl Lagerfeld and Babeth Djian, Numéro Couture - Photographs by Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld / Babeth Djian
Numéro Couture
Steidl

Karl Lagerfeld / Babeth Djian  

Numéro Couture 

Steidl, 2016

320 pages - 27.5 x 35.5 cm / 10.8 x 14 in.

Four-color process - Clothbound hardcover - € 85.00

ISBN 978-3-95829-057-0

Karl Lagerfeld  

Numéro #86, September 2007

© Karl Lagerfeld

This book features Karl Lagerfeld’s most beautiful photographs of Haute Couture garments shot for French fashion magazine Numéro, to celebrate its fifteen years of collaboration with the famous fashion designer. Who else but Karl Lagerfeld could better reveal the timeless and intricate beauty of Haute Couture? With all his innate imagination and indulgence, Karl Lagerfeld has immortalized the iconic models of our time within the covers of Numéro—Cara Delevingne, Linda Evangelista, Natasha Poly, Anja Rubik, Lara Stone, Stella Tennant, Natalia Vodianova… all these and more have participated in his game, often framed by sumptuous decors worthy of the greatest Hollywood productions. Karl Lagerfeld’s spectacular stagings visualize our most daring fantasies of female archetypes, from fairytale princesses to contemporary muses.

Karl Lagerfeld  

Numéro #111, March 2010

© Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld  

Numéro #141, March 2013

© Karl Lagerfeld

KARL LAGERFELD, fashion designer, publisher and book dealer, began working as a photographer in 1987. Karl Lagerfeld has since received the Lucky Strike Design Award from the Raymond Loewy Foundation, the cultural prize from the German Photographic Society, and the ICP Trustees Award from the International Center of Photography. Steidl has published most of Karl Lagerfeld’s books, including A Portrait of Dorian Gray (2004), Room Service (2006), The Beauty of Violence (2010) and the best-selling The Little Black Jacket (2012).

Karl Lagerfeld  

Numéro #151, March 2014

© Karl Lagerfeld

Karl Lagerfeld  

Numéro #141, March 2013

© Karl Lagerfeld

Fashion editor BABETH DJIAN, whose first magazine Jill is still a reference point today, has been at the origin of dozens of cult images published in French and Italian Vogue, Glamour, Mixte and now Numéro. With her visionary eye, Babeth belongs to the few who make a tangible difference in today’s universe of appearances. A large number of photographers, stylists, make-up artists, hairdressers and models began their careers under her direction. In 2008, Edition 7L published her book Babeth.

NUMERO COUTURE by  KARL LAGERFELD and BABETH DJIAN is published by Steidl :
www.steidl.de

Lanvin and H&M Fashion Show in New York

Lanvin and H&M Show in New York

Last night Sofia Coppola, Andie MacDowell, Emma Roberts, Leelee Sobieski, Anna Sui, Tory Burch and Alexander Wang, among other guests, came out to celebrate the collaboration of the Lanvin for H&M collection and to enjoy show stopping designs by famed Lanvin artistic director, Alber Elbaz, at The Pierre hotel. The haute couture creations, which were customized pieces from the Lanvin for H&M collection, made their way down the catwalk with the help of famed models Asia Chow, Pixie Geldof, Dree Hemingway, Olga and Anna Dello Russo.

Photographer: Dan Lecca // Images courtesy of H&M

Guests arrived on the red carpet, which was the landmarked Pierre Hotel façade recreated with NYC styled graffiti, and then they entered the hotel which was swathed with flowers, trees and greenery. It was a runway show that guests will not soon forget. The Lanvin for H&M collection will be sold in around 200 stores worldwide. It will be launched November 20 in US and Canada, and on November 23 in the rest of the world.

“It’s such a fantastic experience to see how creatively Alber Elbaz uses his designs to form a couture experience for our exclusive fashion show in New York. Working with this incredibly gifted designer has been like an ongoing fashion moment, and we’re thrilled to offer his masterpieces to our customers.” Margareta van den Bosch, creative advisor at H&M.

Photographer: Dan Lecca // Images courtesy of H&M

Alber Elbaz, artistic director at Lanvin, has created the women’s collection with an extraordinary ambition for H&M, bringing the codes of the house to make every single piece identifiably the work of Lanvin. For women there are dresses of breathtaking cut and joyful colour, as well as pieces full of Parisian glamour and accessories with playful “joie de vivre”. The menswear collection designed by Lucas Ossendrijver, menswear designer at Lanvin, encapsulates the label’s complete vision of how men should dress. It’s a whole new wardrobe of covetable updated classics, with tuxedos made for daywear and jogging pants adding a whole new sporting twist.

 

Photographer: Dan Lecca // Images courtesy of H&M

Sofia Coppola said of the collection, "I think Alber Elbaz is great, I love what he does at Lanvin, it's so girly and playful and confident. It's so cool he's working with H&M, it makes it so accessible to all kinds of young people to be able to afford it and wear it".

And Andie MacDowell said, "I think it's genius. I'm a big fan of Lanvin. I can afford Lanvin and my daughter can afford H&M, and now my daughter's going to have the opportunity to have a little bit more pizzazz.”