NGV exhibition
Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo
My fashionista friend Tina and I were thrilled and awestruck by the magnificent exhibition currently on at the National Gallery of Victoria, one of my favourite places to visit in Melbourne.
Westwood/Kawakubo celebrates two icons of fashion, Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo at the NGV’s world-premiere summer blockbuster exhibition.
British designer Vivienne Westwood (1941 – 2022) and Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo (born 1942) of Comme des Garçons.
Born a year apart in different countries and cultural contexts, each brought a rule-breaking radicalism to fashion design that subverted the status quo.
Today, their critically acclaimed collections are celebrated globally for re-inventing conventions of taste, gender and beauty, as well as challenging the very form and function of clothing.
Marvel at the spectacular display of nearly 150 innovative and ground-breaking designs of Westwood and Kawakubo which explores the convergences and divergences between these two self-taught rebels of the fashion world.
Many of the exhibits are on loan from international museums and private collections, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum, The Victoria & Albert Museum, Palais Galliera, and the Vivienne Westwood archive.
The exhibition features more than 80 works that have recently entered the NGV Collection, including 40 outstanding works recently gifted to the NGV by Comme des Garçons especially for this exhibition.
Some of the luminaries of the show business world have worn their designs, including Rihanna, Kate Moss, Sarah Jessica Parker, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry.
Vivienne Isabel Swire was born in Glossop, Derbyshire on 8 April 1941.
In 1961, she married Derek Westwood, later divorcing and partnering with Malcolm McLaren. The couple became creative collaborators and proprietors of a retail outlet in Chelsea, going on to have a radical influence on international fashion over the next decade.
Westwood and McLaren stocked the store with a combination of their own designs and purchased items, changing the name every few years to reflect the tenor of the clothing.
Over subsequent years the store became; Let it Rock (1971), Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die (1972), Sex (1974), Seditionaries (1977) and World’s End (1980).
In 1980, Westwood and McLaren’s interests began to diverge and by 1984 Westwood was designing independently, moving her business to Italy for production with her new business partner Carlo d’Amario.
She also began conducting regular archive research of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum and The Wallace Collection. In 1990 she launched her first full menswear collection and structured her business into a variety of labels, including Gold Label and its diffusion line, Red Label.
Japanese designer Rei Kawakubo was born in Tokyo in 1942 and graduated from Keio University in 1964 with a degree in Literature and Fine Art.
After working first as a stylist, she began designing her own clothes and established Comme des Garçons in 1969.
The label was incorporated in 1973, coinciding with the presentation of her first major women’s collection. Despite her lack of formal training, Kawakubo courted critical and commercial success. A new Tokyo boutique was launched in 1975, followed by a dedicated menswear line, Comme des Garçons Homme, in 1978. Kawakubo debuted on the Paris runway three years later, in 1981, where she continues to show her two main collections twice-yearly.
Her work is known for its conceptual and avant-garde leanings, and for a groundbreaking approach to form and function. Many subsequent projects and ready-to-wear lines have since been introduced and include knitwear, furniture and perfume.
Kawakubo’s work has been featured by museums in solo and group exhibitions and she has received numerous honours including the Mainichi Fashion Award in 1983 and 1988, Fashion Group Night of the Stars Award in 1986, the French Chevalier de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993 and, most recently, the Harvard University Graduate School of Design Excellence in Design Award in 2000. In 2017, her work was the subject of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute exhibition, Rei Kawakubo / Comme des Garçons: The Art of the In-Between.
It was lunchtime by the time we finished gazing at Westwood and Kawakubo, so what better place to continue the Japanese theme than enjoying some glorious ramen at Shujinko Flinders? The walk from NGV to Shujinko was well worth it. The ramen was slurp-worthy, brimming with slow-cooked pork slices and noodles swimming in an umami-laden broth.
Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, the exhibition is now on at the NGV unitl 19 April 2026.
Check out www.ngv.vic.gov.au for more information.
