Catwalk
The Art of the Fashion Show
The exhibition »Catwalk« will explore the fashion show as a medium that merges set design, clothing, performance, light, and sound to create a unique spatial experience and temporary Gesamtkunstwerk. From intimate presentations in Haute Couture houses to staged events in large exhibition halls, from appropriations of urban spaces to the first televised fashion shows to fully virtual runways, »Catwalk« will retrace the history of the fashion show from its beginnings in the late 19th and early 20th century to the present day.
Fashion shows are not only harbingers of changing fashion trends, they have always been deeply entangled with seismic shifts in the industry as well: Be it the advent of prêt-a-porter collections in the 1960s, the founding of fashion weeks in the 1970s, the era of »supermodels« in the 1990s or the more recent celebration of diversity and gender blending in spectacular temporary architectures. Drawing inspiration from the theatre, the fine arts, and film, as well as from street and youth culture, couturiers and set designers have reinvented the fashion show again and again, and in turn, inspired pop and counter-culture. The development of fashion shows thus also reflects the changing role of fashion in society.
Presenting unique fashion pieces, film and photography, stage props and ephemera, the exhibition will revisit groundbreaking fashion shows by Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Helmut Lang, Iris van Herpen, Martin Margiela, Prada, Viktor & Rolf, Yves Saint Laurent, and many others.
An exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum and V&A Dundee
Partner: Louis Vuitton
Media Partner: arte
Space
600 – 1,000 m² / 6,000 – 10,000 sq ft
Curatorial Team
Vitra Design Museum: Jochen Eisenbrand, Katharina Krawczyk
V&A Dundee: Kirsty Hassard, Svetlana Panova
Exhibition Design
Ania Martchenko
Graphic Design
Haller Brun
Detailed information
Illustrated Concept
Exhibition Tour
18.10.2025 – 15.02.2026, Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, Germany
03.04.2026 – 17.01.2027, V&A Dundee, Scotland
For further information please contact Cora.Harris@design-museum.de.
