The fashion exhibition is having something of a renaissance in 2025, with a glut of recent shows providing wide-ranging meditations on both contemporary design and historical dress, addressing the idea of legacy in divergent ways.
Taking place around the world – from fashion capitals New York, London, Milan and Paris to Osaka, Antwerp and Dundee – they span blockbuster happenings (like ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ in New York, the opening of which was heralded by the Met Gala in May), niche themes (‘Resolución’ at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp’, which looks to the dress codes of Spanish cinema’s anti-heroines) and sweeping retrospectives (‘Rick Owens, Temple of Love’ at the Palais Galliera, Paris, ‘David Bailey’s Changing Fashion’ at MOP Foundation, A Coruña, Spain, and ‘Worth: Inventing Haute Couture’ at Petit Palais, Paris).
The relative calm of summer makes for an opportune moment to visit these exhibitions – some of which are in their final weeks; others recently opened – whether in your home city or further afield. Here, as selected by the Wallpaper* Style team, eleven extraordinary exhibitions to catch before the summer is out.
‘Rick Owens, Temple of Love’ at the Palais Galliera, Paris
Babel Men’s fitting, Palais Bourbon, Paris, 19 June 2018
(Image credit: Courtesy of Rick Owens and Palais Galliera)
‘I felt that love is the best word to put out there. Maybe it’ll help manifest something,’ Rick Owens told Wallpaper* just prior to the opening of his Paris retrospective, ‘Rick Owens, Temple of Love’, at the Palais Galliera last month. Capturing the American designer’s singular approach – from the label’s early days in Hollywood to its current home in Paris – the ‘bombastic’ exhibition catalogues some of his notable runway looks alongside ephemera and curiosities (including a much-Instagrammed statue-cum-fountain of Owens urinating into a metal trough). ‘If somebody’s clutching their pearls, let them clutch,’ he told us on his want for provocation. ‘When there can be such cruel forces in the world, a little bit of giddiness is not the worst thing. This show is bombastic because I just can’t help it.’
Until 4 January 2026.
‘Resolución’ at MoMu – Fashion Museum Antwerp, Antwerp
Still from Jamón, Jamón, 1992, directed by Bigas Luna, © Bigas Luna
(Image credit: Still from Jamón, Jamón, 1992, directed by Bigas Luna, © Bigas Luna)
A recently opened exhibition at Antwerp’s Momu – Fashion Museum – an institution consistently presenting intriguing and unconventional shows on the subject of style – looks towards Spanish cinema and its anti-heroines for inspiration, with particular focus on the way women are portrayed through costume. Titled ‘Resolución’, director Pedro Almodóvar is perhaps the exhibition’s nexus: ‘Who could forget Carmen Maura burning a mattress to break with everything and leave behind that toxic relationship? If you’re Spanish, these images live in your DNA,’ say curators Beatriz Navas Valdés and Natalia Marín Sancho of his 1988 movie ‘Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown’, though the audiovisual display contains clips from 98 films by 65 directors over nine decades, with 108 actresses in total. As such, ‘Resolución’ – which is held alongside Europalia España – caters to fashion and film buffs alike.
Until 23 November 2025.
READ: A new exhibition explores Spanish cinema through its female anti-heroes
‘Giorgio Armani Privé 2005-2025, Twenty Years of Haute Couture’ at Armani/Silos, Milan
Giorgio Armani at work on the Armani Privé haute couture line
(Image credit: Piero Biasion)
Giorgio Armani began Armani Privé – the haute couture arm of his eponymous label – 20 years ago, a milestone celebrated in an exhibition at the Tadao Ando-designed Armani/Silos in Milan. Marking the first time these pieces have been shown on home soil (Armani Privé presents its collections in Paris as part of couture week), the low-lit exhibition sees the glimmering creations appear from the darkness like apparitions. Featuring the rich surface embellishment and diaphanous fabrications for which Privé is synonymous, highlights include a strapless gown adorned with pearlescent paillettes and Swarovski crystals, worn by Anne Hathaway to the 2009 Oscars. ‘Haute couture allows me to step into a realm of captivating fantasy and experimentation,’ said Mr Armani at the exhibition’s opening. ‘It is both a dream and a service – it’s not about creating clothes for beautiful photos or memorable editorials but designing for a real clientele.’
Until 28 December 2025.
READ: Milan exhibition celebrates 20 years of Armani Privé: ‘Haute couture is fashion when it becomes art’
‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, New York
A gallery view of ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’, which features set design by American artist Torkwase Dyson
(Image credit: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
With its opening heralded by the starry Met Gala this past May, ‘Superfine: Tailoring Black Style’ is the latest blockbuster fashion exhibition to take place at The Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute, New York. Focussing on menswear, the exhibition draws inspiration from Monica Miller’s 2009 book, Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity in its exploration of how fashion has been used to forge Black identity and community (Miller also serves as curator). The exhibition features set design by artist Torkwase Dyson, a series of ‘hyper shapes’ which ‘come out of a study on the period of Black folks self-liberating from the catastrophes of slavery,’ she told Wallpaper* earlier this year. ‘I clocked into how people have fashioned themselves as a manipulation of autonomy and ownership in which clothing is a resistance.’
Until October 26 2025.
‘Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style’ at the Design Museum, London
‘Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style’ at Design Museum, which includes Pamela Anderson’s ‘Baywatch’ red one-piece (pictured above)
(Image credit: Luke Hayes)
Pamela Anderson’s signal-red swimsuit from Baywatch provides the centrepiece of ‘Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style’ at the Design Museum, which runs until mid-August. But this headline-grabbing garment is just a part of the story: Amber Butchart’s thoughtful, playful display is an expansive exploration of swimwear’s loaded history and cultural impact – from the runway (a swim cap from Miu Miu’s S/S 2017 collection appears in the show) to sports, sustainability and activism (the latter in designs from Rebirth Garments, Chromat, and Beefcake Swimwear, who cater to the needs of trans and non-binary swimmers, as well as those with disabilities). ‘One of the big stories [here] is contemporary designers creating swimwear for bodies who have not had specific swimwear created for them before,’ Butchart told Wallpaper*. ‘Because if you don’t have swimwear, you do not have access to these places. You can’t go to a pool naked.’
Until 17 August 2025.
‘Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine’ at V&A Dundee, Dundee
The wedding of Naifah Ashrawi’s daughter, 2001, as featured in ‘Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine’
(Image credit: Palestinian Museum Digital Archive)
Amid the ongoing devastation and famine in Gaza, a vital new exhibition at V&A Dundee looks towards the act of embroidery and textile-making in Palestine, spanning 150 years of the country’s history. Featuring garments, textile samples and photographs, ‘Thread Memory: Embroidery from Palestine’ presents such craft as an expression of resistance and identity. ‘It’s an ever-evolving project and opportunity to keep telling stories in different ways through different objects,’ curator Rachel Dedman told Wallpaper*. ‘We’re addressing the genocide in Gaza and the brutal occupation of Palestine, but more broadly, I think, glimpsing the ways in which grief is written into objects, the way clothing was connected to love or motherhood. These are very simple and quiet ways in which garments can speak to us.’
Until Spring 2026.
‘Louis Vuitton: Visionary Journeys’ at Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka
An exhibition view of ‘Louis Vuitton: Visionary Journeys’
(Image credit: Jeremie Souteyrat for Louis Vuitton)
Part of a duo of exhibitions recently opened in Osaka, Japan by Louis Vuitton – the other is a retrospective of the artist Yayoi Kusama – ‘Louis Vuitton: Visionary Journeys’ is an ‘all-encompassing voyage’ through the house’s history, unfolding at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art this summer. Comprising over 1,000 objects – from historic trunks to colourful collaborations and unexpected curiosities – one focus is Louis Vuitton’s longstanding relationship with Japan. Meanwhile in the atrium of the museum, guests will discover a series of trunks made from washi, a traditional Japanese paper (the exhibition’s scenography comes courtesy of Shohei Shigematsu of OMA).
Until 17 September 2025.
READ: Louis Vuitton’s duo of Osaka exhibitions celebrate the house’s deep-rooted relationship with Japan
‘David Bailey’s Changing Fashion’ at MOP Foundation, A Coruña, Spain
‘David Bailey’s Changing Fashion’ the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation in A Coruña, Spain
(Image credit: MOP Foundation)
Taking place at the Marta Ortega Pérez (MOP) Foundation in A Coruña, Spain, ‘David Bailey’s Changing Fashion’ features an expansive catalogue of the British photographer’s work. Mainly comprising images taken in the 1960s and 1970s – a fertile period for the photographer who is synonymous with the Swinging Sixties in London – the display argues Bailey’s transformative effect on the medium. ‘He loves a double-entendre in his titles, so it works for Bailey,’ his son, Fenton Fox Bailey, a photographer and Bailey’s studio manager, told Wallpaper* of the exhibition’s title. ‘He did change how we see fashion, and as he puts it, “fashion has to change or you just have old-fashioned”.’
Until 14 September 2025.
READ: ‘Changing Fashion’: a new exhibition explores how photographer David Bailey reshaped style
‘Nick Waplington: We Dance in Mysteries: The Isaac Mizrahi Photographs, New York City 1989-1995’ at Hamiltons Gallery
Nick Waplington, Untitled (WDM 209), 1989-1995 from the series ‘We Dance in Mysteries, 1989-1995’
(Image credit: © Nick Waplington, Courtesy of Hamiltons Gallery)
In the early 1990s, Nick Waplington – then a burgeoning photographer – travelled to New York to document the creative process of American fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi. Presented in an intimate exhibition at London’s Hamiltons Gallery, the series of images is a unique document of the ‘creativity and chaos’ of the era, featuring not just Mizrahi at work but a roll-call of 1990s supermodels, from Naomi Campbell to Linda Evangelista. ‘I don’t remember the first day, but I remember the first season, which was kind of strange, because this was the time of the supermodel,’ Waplington told Wallpaper*. ‘So, I was there, and over there was Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista, and there was Cindy Crawford. And we were all in our twenties, and so to be hanging out with them, with Isaac and his team, that was quite surreal.’
Until 23 September 2025.
‘Leigh Bowery!’ at Tate Modern, London
One of Leigh Bowery’s costumes, which features as part of the Tate show
(Image credit: Courtesy of Tate)
Though not strictly a fashion exhibition, ‘Leigh Bowery!’ at Tate Modern – now extended until the end of August – nonetheless features a series of the outré garments which helped define Bowery’s unique brand of performance art – from crystal-adorned gimp masks to feathered mini dresses. Capturing the unique energy of London in the 1980s – particularly the New Romantic and Blitz Kids movements with which the nightlife figure was synonymous – the exhibition also captures the influence Bowery has had over fashion (figures like Alexander McQueen and Rick Owens have found inspiration in his work). ‘I thought it was important to look at someone that contributed a great deal to art and culture at the time, but also beyond, [to] make a show that I hope connects to people’s everyday experience of the city and being creative,’ curator Fiontán Moran told Wallpaper*.
Until 31 August 2025.
READ: ‘Leigh Bowery!’ at Tate Modern: 1980s alt-glamour, club culture and rebellion
‘Worth: Inventing Haute Couture’ at Petit Palais, Paris
Tea gown by Charles Frederick Worth, 1897
(Image credit: Stanislas Wolff)
The founding of the House of Worth is largely considered the birth of haute couture, with British clothing designer Charles Frederick Worth the medium’s ‘inventor’. Such is the starting point of ‘Worth: Inventing Haute Couture’ at the Petit Palais in Paris, the city where the designer would make his name in the mid-19th century. Spanning 400 objects and gowns, the exhibition is a testament to both the architectural construction of his designs – one which was endlessly influential to the couturiers which came in his his wake – but also his eye for decadence and grandeur, often credited to visits to the National Gallery as a young man, where he would spend hours viewing historical portraiture. Displayed in minimal glass vitrines, the exhibition puts his creations centre stage: an opportunity to view these rarely seen, but highly influential, garments up close.
Until 7 September 2025.
