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REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion

Start Date 16 September 2023
End Date 11 February 2024
Venue Design Museum
Location London, U.K.
Curator Sarah Mower MBE and Rebecca Lewin
Five dresses are displayed in front of a brown wall in the 'Start Up Culture' room.
Silver mannequins stand on a grated metal catwalk, each posing wearing different clothes underneath square lighting.
View of a grey circular installation within a gallery, featuring a label entitled 'Alexander McQueen: The Story of Taxi Driver'. Inside are three monochrome outfits on a white circular plinth.
Three rows of outfits are hung on tailor's dummies from a high clothing rail.

REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion sponsored by Alexander McQueen will celebrate over 300 young designers — the NEWGEN alumni — and their sensational impact on the global fashion scene.

The swan dress controversially worn by Björk at the 2001 Oscars, Harry Styles’ Steven Stokey Daley outfit from his video for ‘Golden’ and a unique replica of Sam Smith’s inflatable latex suit by HARRI from this year’s BRIT Awards are amongst the highlight objects in the show announced today.

Visitors will also see the revolutionary neon collection from Christopher Kane’s debut catwalk collection, the upcycled Union Jack jacket by Russell Sage that was worn by Kate Moss for Vogue, and a vast Molly Goddard blue ruffle dress that went viral on Instagram when worn by pop-superstar Rihanna.

These exuberant, rebellious and radical garments will all be brought together for REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion sponsored by Alexander McQueen which will feature nearly 100 innovative fashion looks from ground-breaking debut and early collections. Many of these creations have entered pop-culture history — and launched global design careers. These items will be shown alongside films, drawings, memorabilia and never-before-seen archive material from some of the most well-known contemporary UK-based designers.

Opening in September to coincide with London Fashion Week, this landmark exhibition will be one of the most wide-ranging surveys of contemporary British fashion culture ever staged in the UK. It will offer an unprecedented look at how careers in fashion are forged, and the multitude of opportunities London’s fashion scene offers young creatives.

At its heart, the exhibition tells the story of hundreds of fearless young designers, who have transformed the fashion landscape through their talent and brilliance. The Design Museum has worked directly with these designers to select some of the most important and groundbreaking pieces from their personal archives. Many of the items going on show have not been seen in public since their debut.

REBEL is a collaboration between the Design Museum and the British Fashion Council (BFC) and will celebrate the 30th anniversary of the BFC’s NEWGEN programme. All the designers featured in the show were supported in the early stages of their careers through NEWGEN. It will be guest-curated by BFC Ambassador for Emerging Talent Sarah Mower MBE, and co-curated by the Design Museum Senior Curator Rebecca Lewin.

 

All photos by Andy Stagg. © the DesignMuseum.