The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, will host the major international exhibition pairing the work of two of the most influential fashion designers in recent history, Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons.

The show, “Westwood | Kawakubo,” will run from December 7 to April 19 and marks the first time the designers’ fashion has been shown together. Born a year apart, Westwood in 1941 in the UK and Kawakubo in Japan in 1942, each contributed to rewriting the codes of dress, subverting the form, function, and very meaning of clothing. Beginning their careers in the 1970s working in different countries and cultural contexts, British-born Vivienne Westwood (1941–2022) and Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo (b.1942) introduced a rule-breaking radicalism to fashion by subverting the status quo. As self-taught, independent practitioners, Westwood and Kawakubo’s affinity lies in their uncompromising originality anchored in a desire for personal freedom, autonomy, and social and aesthetic change. Their unorthodox approaches have similarly questioned conventions of taste, gender, and beauty, the body, and garment form and function to change how we think about fashion.

Bringing together works from the NGV Collection with selected important loans from international museums and private collections, the exhibition highlights key collections and concerns, showcasing over 140 designs that explore the convergences and divergences between the two designers’ work. Structuring themes include Punk and Provocation, Rupture, Reinvention, and The Body and The Power of Clothes, each considering different ways in which Westwood and Kawakubo have rewritten fashion convention over the course of their careers.

Exhibition highlights include Westwood’s punk ensembles from the late 1970s; a romantic tartan gown from Westwood’s Anglomania collection worn by Kate Moss on the runway in the early 1990s, and the original version of the corseted wedding dress worn by Sarah Jessica Parker in “Sex and The City: The Movie.” Kawakubo’s works include a sculptural petal ensemble worn by Rihanna on the red carpet of the Met Gala in 2017, alongside the collections Invisible Clothes, Two Dimensions, and Body Meets Dress-Dress Meets Body.

Tony Ellwood, director of the NGV, said in a statement: “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.”

Westwood | Kawakubo
December 7 - April 19, 2025
National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia
www.ngv.vic.gov.au

Photo: Sarah Jessica Parker wearing a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown on the set of Sex and the City: The Movie. Courtesy image.