Fashion exhibitions 2025/2610 Images
Ten years ago this summer, the V&A hosted one of the greatest fashion exhibitions of all time: Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty. The show was curated by Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda, and was initially displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2011, a tribute to the designer a year after his tragic death. Keeping with the annual tradition, that year’s Met Gala shared the exhibition’s theme.
“Even if you never bother with fashion shows, go to this one,” wrote The New Yorker’s Judith Thurman, whilst Holland Cotter of The New York Times described it as “a button-pushing marvel: ethereal and gross, graceful and utterly manipulative, and poised on a line where fashion turns into something else.”
People of all ages travelled far and wide to step inside the world of McQueen. I myself remember waiting anxiously behind two laptop screens when the V&A dropped extra tickets, eventually securing a 10pm slot for the closing night (the museum stayed open 24/7 during its final two weekends). Across its 21-week run at the V&A, the exhibition welcomed 493,043 visitors. In New York, that number reached 661,509.
Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty at the V&A in 2015Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage
While its scale and attention to detail challenged the boundaries of curation, Savage Beauty was also the catalyst for a new era of fashion exhibitions. Since then, multiple luxury brands have opened their own permanent exhibition spaces, art galleries have developed a new found respect for couture, and the global number of fashion museums has increased.
“This phenomenon has been growing ever since the success of Savage Beauty at the Costume Institute and the following blockbuster exhibitions like Manus x Machina, China: Through the Looking Glass, and Heavenly Bodies,” explains Karen Van Godtsenhoven, curator of London’s upcoming Dirty Looks exhibition. “I worked at MoMu, Antwerp’s fashion museum, when this evolution started. I could see the attitudes change towards fashion exhibitions, suddenly, art institutions wanted to collaborate with us and wanted to stage fashion exhibitions.”
Van Godtsenhoven’s Dirty Looks is due to open at the Barbican next month, joining the growing list of exciting new displays. Next month, the V&A will open Marie Antoinette Style, followed by the UK’s first ever Schiaparelli exhibition next year. A Gianni Versace exhibition is on right now in London Bridge, meanwhile Leigh Bowery is in its final weeks at the Tate Modern. Elsewhere, a joint Vivienne Westwood x Rei Kawakubo exhibition will open in Melbourne this December, the 40th anniversary of the Antwerp Six will be celebrated at MoMu and you can currently see Rick Owens pissing in Paris – and, also in Paris, an exhibition of Demna’s work at Balenciaga has just closed its doors after a two-week run.
Superfine: Tailoring Black Style at the Met, 2025Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images
Kaat Debo, chief curator at MoMu, agrees that Savage Beauty marked a turning point for fashion curation. “I feel the Alexander McQueen show was crucial in this heightened interest. It was the first fashion exhibition that attracted huge visitor numbers,” she explains. “Fashion brands discovered the fashion exhibition as possibly very lucrative. We’ve seen museums – without fashion or costume collections and without the expertise to display it – suddenly start programming fashion. In recent years, the big fashion brands discovered the fashion exhibition as a powerful marketing tool. Many of the recent fashion blockbusters have been organised or funded by fashion brands.”
Take the Met’s most recent Louis Vuitton-sponsored exhibition, Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, for example, or Cartier’s current display at the V&A (which the jewellery brand was able to sponsor firsthand), exhibitions have become an ingenious tool for brand visibility that leaves the observer feeling culturally enriched. Fashion also has an advantage that the art world does not: we all wear clothes.
“Most people take an interest in what they and others wear,” says Sarah Grant, senior curator at the V&A. “So exhibitions on fashion will understandably have a broader appeal and be perceived as more accessible than perhaps an exhibition of old masters.” Dennis Nothdruft, head of exhibitions at the Fashion and Textile Museum agrees: “There is definitely an increase in fashion exhibitions across the globe and in many institutions that wouldn’t traditionally show fashion or textiles,” he explains. “I feel that fashion in a gallery context connects to the visitor in a way that, perhaps, paintings and sculptures don’t. We all wear clothing, we all engage in a dialogue with what we wear and what we want to wear.”
Nothdruth makes a key point when he says we all have thoughts about what we want to wear. Famously, haute couture is only available to be seen up close, in person, by a select few – and worn by even fewer. When it comes to archival pieces, even the world’s most famous stylists have had to fight to unlock those doors. In general, luxury fashion is almost completely unattainable for the majority of those interested in it. What can be bought, however, is a £15 exhibition ticket.
Social media has also helped garner a deeper interest in fashion history, allowing us to delve deep into digital archives. Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts dedicated to industry lore have introduced a new generation to celebrated shows, editorials, magazine covers, and the lesser known (yet pivotal) pioneers. “I think fashion history has become part of pop culture and I find it quite exciting,” says Émilie Hammen, director of Paris’ Palais Galleria.
“I tend to think that [social media] has reinforced our interest in archival research and historical narratives. I am always amazed by what types of knowledge online communities manage to create. Whether it’s tracking rare editorials from niche magazines or retracing the lives and creative contributions of overlooked players. Now it’s for us to further these stories in the museum and present the original artefacts to our visitors.”
The Barbican’s Karen Van Godtsenhoven sees both sides of the online impact. “Social media doesn’t have a bad influence on visitor numbers, if anything, the online hype begets even longer queues,” she says. “The biggest downside to it is that people start to see the exhibition as a backdrop setting for taking and sharing selfies, and this can get in the way of the viewing experience.”
“Social media has certainly pushed attention for fashion exhibitions,” admits MoMu’s Kaat Debo, though she is more critical of its effect. “It has led to an enormous consumption of imagery, but mainly without context, without historical knowledge, and more importantly, often without critical reflection. I hope exhibitions can help us go beyond the brainless consumption of images on social media.”
Despite fashion’s rich archive being largely available online, there is nothing quite like seeing history up close. In 2025, there has been almost as many exhibition announcements as there has been new creative directors hired at major brands. And whilst we’re all addicted to our phones – and legendary catwalk shows remain readily available on YouTube – the desire to go out and absorb fashion history in real life persists.
As the V&A’s Sarah Grant puts it: “While it is wonderful that, no matter where you are in the world, you can watch the new collections shown at Milan fashion week, see the latest outfit worn by a fashion influencer in Sydney, or watch a reel of highlights from someone attending a new fashion exhibition in New York, it will never replace seeing the garments in real life.”
