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The godmother of punk Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo, founder of Japanese fashion brand Commes des Garçons, are unlikely bedfellows.
Kawakubo’s husband and Commes des Garçons chief executive Adrian Joffe was especially surprised by the NGV’s matchmaking for their summer blockbuster, Westwood/Kawakubo, which opens to the public on Sunday.
“At first we thought they’re not really that similar as people,” Joffe said at the exhibition launch.
Commes des Garçons chief executive Adrian Joffe, husband of the label’s founder Rei Kawakubo, inside the Westwood/Kawakubo exhibition at the NGV.Credit: Simon Schluter
Using more than 100 pieces from the NGV collection and more than 40 loaned items, curators Katie Somerville and Danielle Whitfield make a visually arresting case for the unexpected union, with a show emphasising the designers’ creative output from 1975 to 2025, rather than their backstories.
Entering the exhibition you immediately become the unwitting third wheel in an unusual relationship played out in swathes of tartan, fun house mirror silhouettes and romanticism, with five key rooms divided into the themes of punk and provocation; rupture; reinvention; the body; and the power of clothes.
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It takes every ounce of cultural deprogramming not to pit the two women against each other, as their opulent gowns, taut tailoring and technical creativity face off, often from opposite sides of the spaces.
The work of Westwood, who died in 2022 when she was 81 years old, is immediately familiar from old fashion magazines, red carpet appearances and Sex and the City: The Movie. Her sumptuous silhouettes and rebel spirit satisfy nostalgic impulses with their faded familiarity. Like Westwood herself, they are brash and in-your-face.
Stay in the room long enough and the work of Kawakubo, 83, draws you in slowly, with its intellectual complexity and “where on earth would you wear that?” execution. A staggered wall of her creations in the reinvention room can make you fall deeply in love with the designer’s talent.
For fashion lovers, particularly those already familiar with Westwood and Commes des Garçons, this is a treasure trove. The NGV’s knack for display is more subdued here than in last year’s record-breaking Yayoi Kusama exhibition, which attracted 570,537 visitors, and the cinematic Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse in 2022.
There is space to intimately examine the works. “I think in some way a synergy comes out,” Joffe says. “Something new that seems to be happening, a new way of seeing things, which I think is the best thing about collaborating. One and one makes three and all that.”
‘Westwood/Kawakubo’ at the NGV opens to the public on Sunday and runs until April 19.Credit: AAPIMAGE
Like all good relationships, maintaining the bond takes work, with the exhibition’s premise leaning heavily on written descriptions in the spaces. For those really rooting for the partnership, the comprehensive catalogue – with contributions from milliner Stephen Jones, who created whimsical gestural headpieces for the exhibition mannequins, and singer Chrissie Hynde – is essential reading.
But great relationships take more than paperwork, and the overlapping of the artists begins unfolding by the time you enter the gift shop.
It’s not a bitter break-up. This summer fling still leaves memories of a momentary passion.
Westwood/Kawakubo is at NGV International until April 19.
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