Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo paired for the first time in blockbuster exhibition at the NGV | Fashion

Two era-defining avant garde trend designers, Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, can be introduced collectively in a blockbuster summer season exhibition introduced on Tuesday by the Nationwide Gallery of Victoria.It has been greater than 20 years since Westwood’s work has been exhibited extensively in Australia, and the NGV present would be the first for the reason that designer’s dying in December 2023.Linda Evangelista in a Vivienne Westwood design from 1996. {Photograph}: Photographs Press/Getty ImagesCurated by the NGV, with works drawn from the museum’s intensive trend assortment supplemented by loans from the Metropolitan Museum, the V&A and others, Westwood | Kawakubo will open in Melbourne on 7 December.Westwood got here to prominence because the designer behind the tattered, torn and sometimes obscene clothes of London’s Nineteen Seventies punk scene, earlier than transferring in direction of irreverent however traditionally grounded tailoring and corsetry within the early Eighties. Later her local weather activism grew to become a crucial part of her life and work.Rihanna in Comme des Garçons on the 2017 Met Gala. {Photograph}: Daniele Venturelli/WireImageAfter establishing Comme des Garçons in her native Japan, Kawakubo appalled the style institution when she started exhibiting in Paris in 1981. Her deconstructed and distressed designs received her a fervent underground fanbase and, with the hindsight of historical past, they’ve gained crucial approval too. In 2017 Kawakubo was the topic of a uncommon standalone exhibition on the Metropolitan Museum; it was solely the second time the Costume Institute had run an exhibition of a dwelling designer, the primary being Yves Saint Laurent in 1983.skip previous e-newsletter promotionSign as much as Saved for LaterCatch up on the enjoyable stuff with Guardian Australia’s tradition and way of life rundown of popular culture, traits and tipsPrivacy Discover: Newsletters could comprise information about charities, on-line adverts, and content material funded by exterior events. For extra info see our Privateness Coverage. We use Google reCaptcha to guard our web site and the Google Privateness Coverage and Phrases of Service apply.after e-newsletter promotionKatie Somerville, the NGV’s senior curator of trend and textiles and the exhibition’s co-curator, says whereas Westwood and Kawakubo’s works are aesthetically distinct, there’s “a stunning symmetry” within the designers’ lives and practices. Each designers had been self-taught they usually had been born a 12 months aside. Additionally they constructed companies in an trade that was, and stays, male-dominated in its higher echelons.When planning the exhibition, Somerville researched whether or not the pairing had ever been made earlier than, “and nobody had”, she says. “In order that’s at all times a extremely thrilling area to be in … when you’ll be able to current an exhibition idea that does break new floor.”Katie Somerville, senior curator, trend and textiles, on the NGV poses with a 1987 Vivienne Westwood ensemble. {Photograph}: Eugene Hyland/Nationwide Gallery VictoriaRather than a chronological retrospective, the exhibition can be curated thematically, with rooms dedicated to punk, the designers’ engagement with the physique and their historic influences.Greater than 140 works can be on show, together with early-career punk ensembles by Westwood, alongside a tartan robe worn by Kate Moss within the designer’s 1993-94 Anglomania assortment. From Comme des Garçons there can be a customized gown worn by Rihanna to the 2017 Met Gala and 40 clothes donated by Kawakubo for the exhibition.The NGV has grow to be identified for its double-bill blockbusters, together with Warhol | Ai Weiwei and Keith Haring/Jean-Michel Basquiat: Crossing Traces. Westwood | Kawakubo would be the first trend pairing and the primary to characteristic feminine artists. “I feel while you convey two particular person artists collectively … [there are] fantastic new methods of seeing their work that come out of that comparability,” Somerville says.“We’re not for a minute saying that they’re the identical or comparable, however there’s sufficient there that connects them to make that kind of forwards and backwards of taking a look at their work collectively … actually thrilling and productive.”