Fashion-lovers slipping away for a weekend or a week in Melbourne over the summer holidays might want to check out the National Gallery of Victoria.
The NGV’s world-premiere summer blockbuster 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.
Through a showstopping display of nearly 150 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 40 outstanding works recently gifted to the NGV by Comme des Garçons especially for this exhibition.
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 Westwood and Kawakubo have each rewritten fashion over the course of their careers. Alongside fashion, the exhibition also features archival materials, photography and runway footage, offering audiences a deep insight into the minds and creative processes of these two legends of contemporary fashion.
Exhibition highlights include Westwood’s iconic punk ensembles from the late 1970s, popularised by London bands such as The Sex Pistols and Siouxsie 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 from the Wake Up, Cave Girl Autumn-winter 2007-08 collection, famously worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and The City: The Movie.
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 cultural 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 Kawakubo’s dramatic abstract works of the last two decades which challenge the relationship between the body and clothing. These include the playful Two Dimensions, spring-summer 2012, and the abstract forms of Invisible Clothes spring-summer 2017.
The iconic sculptural gingham forms from Body Meets Dress – Dress Meets Body collection (spring-summer 1997) also feature.
Major showstopping moments in the exhibition include a dramatic, spotlit gallery highlighting how both designers have been influenced by fashion and dressmaking 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 opened in early December and is due to conclude in mid April and is a must for fans of one or both rebel designers.
