From Chanel’s London takeover and Louis Vuitton’s Parisian Dream, to Andy Warhol, Iris Van Herpen, and Paul Kooiker, these are the shows to stick in your diary this year
There’s no denying that the January blues have hit us like a ton of bricks. The cold nights, the rain, and the 2.5 hours – at best – of sunlight a day are currently being endured through gritted teeth. But when it comes to fashion, we have a lot to look forward to: from the upcoming menswear shows, to the AW23 couture and womenswear seasons, as well as a whole lot of brilliant exhibitions.
Enough of watching BTS videos on TikTok: nothing quite beats seeing the magic of intricate embroidery, statement designs, or game-changing silhouettes up-close-and-personal. Back in 1968, author of Art, Life and the Fashion Museum Louise Wallenberg put it perfectly when she wrote, “Costume can tell us more than any other type of museum collection about how people looked, felt, and lived at any particular time. A garment can be regarded as the remaining outer shell of a living person and will reflect that person’s taste, position or way of life.”
Whether it’s as a way of understanding history through garments or a desire to escape into the fantasy beautiful clothing can conjure up, the last decade has seen us descend on fashion exhibitions like never before. Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams opened at London’s V&A in 2019 and broke the museum’s attendance records, attracting over 700,000 people across its seven-month tenure (good news: it’s now showing in Tokyo), while its current Africa fashion show has proved so popular the institution is looking to retain over 70 pieces for its permanent collection. Meanwhile, the New York Met’s 2018 Heavenly Bodies show similarly blew past attendance rates out of the water.
Amounting to years of work by curators, historians, and creatives, there’s something about seeing masterful fashion that keeps us coming back for more. From initial references and original sketches, to early samples the final result, coming face to face with someone’s perfectly lit and positioned creative process is engrossing – not least because it’s so rare to have access to these treasures, given they’re so distant in an industry forever thriving off its exclusivity.
As we roll into 2023, here’s a list of the shows you should be adding to your calendar – including landmark outings by Chanel, Iris Van Herpen, Louis Vuitton, and more.
LV DREAM, LOUIS VUITTON (PARIS, NOW SHOWING)
This immersive exhibition by Louis Vuitton invites you into the heart of Paris, to celebrate 160 years of creative exchanges and artistic collaboration by the house – both historic and contemporary. Across nine rooms – each with its own interactive components you’ll want to get involved in – are monumental pieces from the house’s former creative directors and the artists they joined forces with, among them Nicolas Ghesquière, Virgil Abloh, Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones, as well as Rei Kawakubo, Azzedine Alaïa, and Richard Prince. In their own words, “LV DREAM is a rich and exhilarating exploration of Louis Vuitton’s ongoing dialogue between the past and the future, heritage and modernity, Paris and abroad, savoir-faire and innovation”.
PAUL KOOIKER: FASHION (AMSTERDAM, NOW SHOWING)
Paul Kooiker’s fashion photography captures beauty in a world of its own, playing on dark desires, fetishisms, and subconscious dreams to contrast the superficial standards that dominate most of the fashion media today. Despite his photography including some of the biggest fashion brands and today’s most famous faces, they possess a real disconnect from time and place, transporting each photograph into a world of its own. All works in the exhibition are created with an iPhone, showcasing Kooiker’s ability to take something so familiar and create something that feels detached and unique. Using the fashion industry as its backdrop, the exhibition reveals the absurdity of human vanity and desire.
MCQUEEN: MIND, MYTHOS, MUSE (MELBOURNE, NOW SHOWING)
During an interview with Harper’s Bazaar in 2007, McQueen once said, “I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists. I have to force people to look at things”. In the same vein, his collections tackled controversial themes and ideas, such as his fourth runway show titled Highland Rape A/W 1995, where models walked in ripped and bloody clothing, intended as a commentary on colonialism and the Highland clearances of Scotland. Pieces from this collection are currently on display at NVG International as part of its Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse show. The exhibition has been divided into four themes – mythos, fashioned narratives, evolution and existence, and technical innovation – and showcased more than 120 little-seen garments and accessories, including pieces worn by Isabella Blow and fellow muse Annabelle Neilson. It’s an engrossing insight into McQueen’s far-reaching sources of inspiration, his creative processes, and his uncanny capacity for storytelling.
THIERRY MUGLER: COUTURISSME (NEW YORK, NOW SHOWING)
Before his passing in 2022, Manfred Thierry Mugler was known for his unorthodox techniques and theatrical fashion shows – a pioneer of power dressing, the legendary designer created a universe in which women were their own superheroes. Following its success at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art then the Netherlands, Munich, and Paris, Mugler’s first retrospective has arrived at New York’s Brooklyn Museum. Orchestrated by Matthew Yokobosky, the exhibition features more than 100 looks, as well as photographs, sketches, videos, a scented room, and spectacular installations that mirror the visionary designer’s futuristic approach. Expect glass, Plexiglas, vinyl, latex, and chrome – Mugler’s 1980s and 90s staples, and ones which continue to influence generation after generation of young fashion creatives.
KARL LAGERFELD: A LINE OF BEAUTY (NEW YORK, MAY)
“Karl Lagerfeld was one of the most captivating, prolific, and recognisable forces in fashion and culture, known as much for his extraordinary designs and tireless creative output as for his legendary persona”, said Max Hollein, Director of the NY Met in a press release. Coming May 2023, Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty will spotlight the German-born designer’s stylistic vocabulary, focused on themes recurring across his work from the 1950’s to his final collection in 2019. Across approximately 150 pieces on display, each accompanied by Lagerfeld’s sketches, we are invited to observe his designs for Balmain, Chanel, Chloé, Patou, Fendi, and his eponymous label, Karl Lagerfeld, bringing together a collection of work unparalleled in fashion history.
CHRISTIAN DIOR: DESIGNER OF DREAMS (TOKYO, NOW SHOWING)
Having broken all records of attendance when on show at the V&A in London in 2019, Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is now making waves in Tokyo, an exceptional event that celebrates the sincere, singular ties between Dior and Japan. From the outset, Dior has looked to Japan for inspiration, so under the curatorship of Florence Müller, this retrospective has been reinterpreted by a new scenographic narrative, designed as a tribute to Japanese culture. Documenting 75 years of Dior, from the Bar Suit to the New Look, the exhibition is punctuated with artistic influences, unique collaborations, and archival documents, most of which have never before been shown to the public.
ANDY WARHOL: THE TEXTILES (LONDON, MARCH)
Influential pop artist, film director, producer, visual artist and of course, textile designer. The icon that is Andy Warhol, one of the most prolific and popular artists of his time who used both avant-garde and highly commercial sensibilities across his work is being celebrated this year at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in London. The exhibition will include over 35 of Warhol’s textile patterns from the period, showcasing a fun range of colourful objects including ice cream sundaes, delicious toffee apples, cut lemons, and pretzels both on fabric lengths and on garments. Many of the most important manufacturers in American textile history will also be represented, including Stehli Silks, Fuller Fabrics Inc, and M Lowenstein and Sons.
IRIS VAN HERPEN (PARIS, NOVEMBER)
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs will pay tribute to innovative Dutch fashion designer Iris Van Herpen this November, as part of an exhibition that delves into the designer’s creative exploration of cutting-edge technology – all timed harmoniously with the label’s 15th anniversary. Recognised as one of the most avant-garde figures of her generation, this retrospective will merge fashion, contemporary art, design and science revolving around eight themes that identify the very essence of Van Herpen’s body of work. “From micro to macro, the exhibition questions the place of the body in space, its relationship to clothing and its environment as well as its future in a rapidly changing world”, the museum announced.
AFRICA FASHION (LONDON, NOW SHOWING)
Africa Fashion celebrates the global impact and innovation of a selection of fashion creatives from over 20 countries, exploring the work of the vanguard in the 20th century. Among them are designer Shade Thomas-Fahm and Chris Seydouand, as well as the creatives at the heart of this dynamic and varied scene today – like Thebe Magugu, Orange Culture, and Dazed’s own IB Kamara. The exhibition explores how the digital world accelerated the expansion of the continent’s industry, and forms part of a broader and ongoing V&A commitment to grow the museum's permanent collection of work by African and African diaspora designers, working collaboratively to tell new layered stories about the richness and diversity of African creativity, cultures, and histories, using fashion as a catalyst. As a result of the show, the Victoria & Albert Museum has acquired more than 70 pieces for its permanent collections.
THE SURREAL WORLD OF ELSA SCHIAPARELLI (NOW SHOWING, PARIS)
Nearly 20 years since the last retrospective devoted to Schiaparelli, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris returns to celebrate the sophisticated and feminine creations of the Italian couturière. The exhibition brings together 577 works including 212 silhouettes and accessories by Schiaparelli herself, displayed alongside iconic paintings, sculptures, jewellery, perfumes, ceramics, posters, and photographs by Schiaparelli’s friends and contemporaries – among them Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, Jean Cocteau, Meret Oppenheim, and Elsa Triolet. Each room pays homage to Schiaparelli’s relationship with artists and visual culture, displaying much of her inspiration from her close ties to the Parisian avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s.
GABRIELLE CHANEL: FASHION MANIFESTO (LONDON, SEPTEMBER)
In September, the V&A will stage the first UK exhibition dedicated to French couturier, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. The highly anticipated exhibition will chart the evolution of her iconic design style and the establishment of her namesake house – from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 to the showing of her final collection in 1971. Featuring over 180 looks, including some created for Hollywood stars Lauren Bacall and Marlene Deitrich, all seen together for the first time, jewellery, accessories, make-up, and perfume are also set to go on display. The exhibition will explore Chanel’s pioneering approach to fashion design: one which paved the way for a new feminine elegance and continues to influence the way women dress today.