Vivenne Westwood And Rei Kawakubo Prove That Rebellion Never Goes Out Of Style
The National Gallery Victoria’s latest exhibition brings together two fashion giants who redefine how clothing interacts with the body.
Raised in the shadow of post-war Britain and Japan, the late Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo-of Comme des Garçons (CDG) and Dover Street Market—emerged from vastly different cultures with a shared instinct to disrupt. One, appointed a Dame of the British Empire (DBE), mined 17th- and 18th-century tailoring to create punk theatre, slicing through convention with corsets and crinolines. The other appeared uninterested in nostalgia, choosing instead to dismantle structure and symmetry down the Paris runways. Between them lies a radical proposition: neither sought permission to redefine sartorial norms, and neither waited for understanding before doing so.
Amid the archives that only the most attentive might have noticed, the two fashion rebels came together for a fleeting, little-known project in 2002. It was a rare collaboration, in which Kawakubo selected a handful of Westwood’s archival pieces to be remade in CDG fabrics. There was no runway show or headline-grabbing campaign, just mutual respect between two fellow designers. Now, decades later, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) reunites their work under one roof in a far grander way. The Westwood | Kawakubo summer exhibition (running until 19 April 2026) gathers their creative parallels across five thematic sections—Punk and Provocation, Rupture, Reinvention, The Body, and The Power of Clothes—showcasing how history and abstraction, drama and intellect, are celebrated side by side.
Photography by Visit Victoria
Pairing artists is not new territory for the NGV, as past blockbuster exhibitions such as Andy Warhol | Ai Weiwei and Keith Haring | Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Lines revealed unexpected common ground. That same comparative lens is now used in this show, framing two fashion giants as cultural thinkers in their own right, demonstrating how garments act as carriers of cerebral commentary rather than mere decoration.
In the lead-up to the exhibition—which opened with NGV’s annual, star‑studded gala co-chaired by Melbourne-based musician and three-time Grammy nominee Troye Sivan—the museum had already built an impressive holding of more than 100 works by both Westwood and Kawakubo. This deep curatorial pursuit has since expanded to more than 140 designs through international loans from New York’s The Metropolitan Museum of Art, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, Paris’s Palais Galliera, and the Vivienne Westwood archive.
Walking through the show feels like oscillating between multiple atmospheric realities, each more vivid than the last. Curators Katie Somerville and Danielle Whitfield have orchestrated each space to illuminate the ideas that have driven both designers across decades: the anarchic punk movement of the 1970s; the reinterpretation of fashion’s past; experimental approaches to garment-making; and a study of identity, gender, and the idealised silhouette.
Photography by Eugene Hyland
Westwood’s signature punk ensembles from the late 1970s recall the energy of London’s underground music scene, with bands such as the Sex Pistols and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Her playful, romantic side emerges in the MacAndreas tartan gown from the Anglomania collection (A/W 1993/94), famously carried down the runway by Kate Moss, while the original corseted wedding dress from the Wake Up Cave Girl collection (A/W 2007/08) was later seen on Sarah Jessica Parker’s character Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City: The Movie. Columbine, comprising a corset top and mini-crini from the Voyage to Cythera collection (A/W 1989/90), is a key work in the exhibition, appearing for the first time through a generous donation by Krystyna Campbell-Pretty AM & Family.
Elsewhere, Kawakubo’s work traces decades of experimentation with form and abstraction—from the sculptural petal ensemble worn by Rihanna at the 2017 Met Gala to key pieces worn by Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Tracee Ellis Ross. On view are a series of abstract works from recent decades, such as the playful 2 Dimensions collection (S/S 2012), the exaggerated Invisible Clothes collection (S/S 2017), and the gingham distortions of the Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body collection (S/S 1997). Kawakubo has also donated 45 works to the NGV’s fashion and textiles collection, 37 of which are presented here.
The National Gallery of Victoria is located at 180 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne VIC 3006, Australia. Explore the full exhibition and purchase your ticket here.
National Gallery Victoria | Comme Des Garcons | Vivenne Westwood
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