Seven biggest fashion exhibits of the year you must visit

Fashion is art and it belongs in the museum. Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani puts it perfectly when he says, “In our digital era there is undoubtedly growing curiosity about what is concrete, literal, and real. There’s an aspiration towards craftsmanship, things made with care and with passion and made to last. It’s the opposite of fast fashion, which appears increasingly superficial and inconsistent.” The realm of storied fashion houses—full of lengthy legacies offer an opportunity to rediscover key moments in the history of fashion. This gives the viewer a profound and personal experience that is very different from other forms of storytelling, quite literally transforming the very status of haute couture. Fashion exhibitions aren’t merely a place for contemplation but an inspiration for people interested in more than just that.

Iris Van Herpen: Sculpting the senses

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France 

Founded in 2007, the maison of Iris van Herpen is widely recognised for blending fashion, contemporary art, science and cutting-edge technology to create 3D-printed couture gowns. The exhibition will celebrate the Dutch designer’s avant-garde, otherworldly creations. Offering an immersive and sensory exploration into the designer’s universe, the retrospective features around 100 dynamic creations seeking new forms for femininity, challenging our notions of haute couture. “From micro to macro, the exhibition questions the place of the body in space, its relationship to clothing and its environment, its future in a rapidly changing world,” the Musée des Arts Décoratifs shared in a statement. 

Book your tickets at museeyslparis.com; From November 29, 2023 to April 28, 2024

Gabrielle Chanel: Fashion Manifesto

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK

The first Chanel retrospective to be staged by a major British museum devoted entirely to the work of French couturière, Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel, charting the establishment of the House of CHANEL. The exhibition that premiered in Paris in 2020, is now headed to London—tracing her pioneering career: from the opening of her first millinery boutique in Paris in 1910 to the showing of her final collection in 1971. It decodes her inspirational designs, like her love affair with the iconic Chanel tweed suit—a look described as “the world’s prettiest uniform,” in 1964, among many other creations that paved the way for a new feminine elegance, drafting a framework for fashion that continues to influence the dressing of the modern woman. 

Book your tickets at www.vam.ac.uk; From September 16, 2023 to February 25, 2024

The Offbeat Sari

The Design Museum, London, UK

The Offbeat Sari exhibition celebrates the contemporary sari unravelling its various iterations and versatile evolution. “For me and so many others, the sari is of personal and cultural significance, but it is also a rich, dynamic canvas for innovation, encapsulating the vitality and eclecticism of Indian culture,” says Design Museum’s Head of Curatorial, Priya Khanchandani. The metaphorical symbol of design innovation remains unfixed in its form enabling it to reinvent itself along with the current generations. From the first ever Sabyasachi-designed sari to be worn at New York’s Met Gala, themed Gilded Glamour to the stunning silk creation worn by author and comedian Alok V Menon as a means of breaking the gender stereotype, this curation explores some of the finest saris made by established and emerging Indian designers unfolding the very definition of India today.

Book your tickets at designmuseum.org, Until September 17, 2023

Andy Warhol: The Textiles

The Fashion and Textile Museum, London, UK

The first exhibition that pays tribute to influential pop artist Andy Warhol, known for his iconic images of Campbell’s soup cans, Coke bottles, and Marilyn Monroe—tracing back to his early career as a commercial artist before he rose to fame as a graphic designer and illustrator in the early 1960s. Featuring a selection of over 45 of Warhol’s vintage garments and textile patterns in vibrant and striking screenprints like ice cream sundaes, delicious toffee apples, colourful buttons, cut lemons and pretzels, etc., his designs leave very limited room for fantasy and vision. Additionally, the collection also showcases the manufacturers responsible for producing the fabrics, in collaboration with companies such as Stehli Silks, Fuller Fabrics Inc., and M Lowenstein and Sons among the most significant in America’s history. 

Book your tickets at fashiontextilemuseum.digitickets.co.uk; Until September 10, 2023

Modeetsport (Fashion and Sport)

Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France

To celebrate the forthcoming 2024 Olympic Games to be held in Paris, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs presents Mode et sport: From one Podium to Another—interconnecting the alternate worlds of fashion and sports. Tracing the evolution of sportswear and its influence on contemporary fashion, the collection features iconic works of celebrated designers like Jean Patou, Jeanne Lanvin, Gabrielle Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli etc. who made sportswear a part of the everyday urban wardrobe. From major collaborations between fashion houses and sports brands to tracksuits and sneakers being ubiquitous on the streets and runways alike, the collection illuminates the very existence of sports apparel from antiquity to the present day. 

Book your tickets at madparis.fr; From September 20, 2023 to April 7, 2024

LV DREAM BY LOUIS VUITTON

Paris, France

LV Dream from the house of Louis Vuitton celebrates 160 years of rich heritage and innovative evolution. Located in the heart of Paris within the building of the former Parisian emporium, the La Belle Jardinière department store, the immersive exhibit comprises nine enigmatic rooms full of interactive installations. These include leather goods dedicated to Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama, Karl Lagerfeld’s “Punching Bag”, Cindy Sherman’s “Studio Trunk” and rare Artycapucine bags; a room dedicated to Rei Kawakubo’s iconic capsules, and artistic collaborations which include never-seen-before portraits of Louis Vuitton by Alex Katz and Mister Cartoon. Bringing forth culinary excellence, the designer showcase also features a stunning café and chocolaterie courtesy of Insta-famous chef patissier Maxime Frédéric, offering delicious delectables that play on the maison’s motifs. “Collaborating with Louis Vuitton is to be a part of the maison’s history, a history of passion and savoir faire, where people are at the heart of each chapter. I hope that with my team I can bring a touch of love and delicacy,” states Maxime Frédéric. 

Book your tickets at lvdream.seetickets.com; Until November 15, 2023

Yvessaint Laurent: Transparencies 

Museum of Lace and Fashion, Calais, France

The Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris has teamed up with the Museum for Lace and Fashion in Calais for a two-part exhibition dedicated to the work of French couturier Yves Saint Laurent. The showcase will feature more than sixty models from the collections of Pierre Bergé—Yves Saint Laurent Foundation and the Museum of Lace and Fashion, supplemented with accessories, drawings, photographs and videos. Highlighting the theme of transparency in fabrics “to propose a new, powerful, and sensual female figure,” the collection aims “to overturn the codes of the unveiling of the female body”. 

Book your tickets at museeyslparis.com; Until November 12, 2023 at the Museum for Lace and Fashion 2023, then at the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris in 2024