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Thai silk and royal diplomacy
Queen Sirikit’s wardrobe brought Thai silk, historic forms and Paris couture into the visual language of twentieth-century diplomacy. La Mode en Majesté looks beyond royal style to a period in which clothing became closely involved in how modern Thailand represented itself. In 1960, Queen Sirikit of Thailand embarked on an international tour that would take…
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Alaïa, African influences
At the Fondation Azzedine Alaïa in Paris, a new exhibition traces the presence of Africa across decades of the couturier’s work, revealing an influence carried through childhood memories, materials, colour and some of his most recognisable experiments with the body. Azzedine Alaïa made his career in Paris, but part of his visual language had been…
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Iris van Herpen: Sculpting the Senses
Few designers have tested the limits of haute couture as persistently as Iris van Herpen. Since establishing her Amsterdam maison in 2007, she has developed a practice in which fashion moves through architecture, biology, engineering, contemporary art and science, bringing disciplines rarely associated with the traditional atelier into the construction of clothing. That approach is…
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Costume Art at the Met
Fashion has spent a long time negotiating its place inside the museum. Costume Art, which opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 10, 2026, begins from a different position. Rather than asking whether clothing deserves to stand beside painting or sculpture, the exhibition turns the question around. Look closely at art history, it…
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Inside Dior’s Grammar of Forms
Most runway shows end the moment the final look disappears backstage. The applause fades, guests leave their seats and, within minutes, the collection begins a new life online through thousands of carefully selected images. What remains is often a sequence of photographs that capture the silhouettes but inevitably compress the experience of seeing them in…
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The V&A exhibition – Schiaparelli effect
At the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art arrives at a moment when fashion is increasingly expected to justify its place within culture. More than a retrospective of one of the twentieth century’s most unconventional designers, the exhibition asks a question that has followed fashion for decades without ever receiving a…
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Palais Galliera – Tisser, broder, sublimer
Craft, technique and mastery are often associated with preservation. They evoke heritage, tradition and knowledge passed from one generation to the next. At the Palais Galliera, however, Tisser, broder, sublimer: les savoir-faire de la mode invites visitors to look at these ideas from another perspective. Rather than celebrating finished garments, the exhibition turns its attention…
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Palais Galliera – 18th century fashion
There is something deceptively familiar about 18th-century fashion. Corsets, panniers, elaborate fabrics, powdered hair and ornament have become so recognisable that they can almost be read at a glance. They appear across cinema, photography, contemporary collections and popular culture, often long after the historical context that produced them has disappeared. La Mode du XVIIIe siècle…
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Kevin Germanier, Les Monstrueuses
Swiss design has long been associated with clarity. Precision, functionality and technical rigour have shaped much of the country’s creative identity, leaving little room for ornament for ornament’s sake. Kevin Germanier has never accepted that distinction. Throughout his career, he has shown that excess can demand just as much precision as minimalism, and that decoration…