Gallery of Fashion

This suit was made in England for the wedding in 1673 of James II when Duke of York to Mary Beatrice d'Este. The style of the suit represents a new men's fashion that had been introduced several years before by the Duke's older brother, Charles II.

The skirts of this dress were gathered up with loops, a new fashion referring to country working dress. This dress was originally constructed as a ‘sack-back’ or negligée, with loose pleats from the shoulders. Dresses were often altered, as fabric was so expensive.

Chinese design was immensely admired and sought-after in Europe and this banyan and waistcoat are a unique blend of Chinese textiles and Western tailoring. They are clearly cut, tailored and sewn in a European style.

Banyans and nightgowns were popular informal men's garments worn for leisure at home and among friends. Both banyan and waistcoat have been made out of a silk woven especially for the Chinese Imperial Court. These silks were richly brocaded with dragons on the both the front and back of the robe and featured stylised landscape borders. Silks such as these were not widely available in Europe at this time.

The Italian tailor who made this banyan and waistcoat, adapted them to the wide, flowing style of the Chinese robe, while retaining the usual European front opening instead of the traditional Chinese side opening. The characteristic cuffs on a Chinese dragon robe have been inverted on the banyan sleeves.

Although clothing worn at court was the most formal style of dress, by 1800 it was not the most fashionable. Such rich fabrics and embroidery were no longer worn for everyday wear, but the requirements for court dress provided work for craftspeople in the textile industries. This suit is thought to have belonged to a Scottish nobleman and ancester of the donor. A pair of matching velvet breeches would have completed the ensemble.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, plain and decorated hand-woven muslins imported into Britain from Bengal by the East India Company were highly fashionable, and were imitated by British manufacturers in Ayreshire and Lancashire. The needle-worked 'lace' fillings and embroidery of this exceptionally fine dress were probably worked in Ayreshire.

In the mid-19th century, the European fashionable silhouette reached extreme proportions. Corsets provided support and enhanced small waists, emphasising the extraordinary size of crinoline skirts. By the mid-1850s, ever widening skirts meant the weight of multiple petticoats had become very uncomfortable. The 'artificial', or 'cage' crinoline appeared in 1857 as a welcome and more practical alternative. It was made of spring steel hoops, increasing in diameter towards the bottom and connected with tapes. This dress would have been worn with a crinoline underneath.

The V&A owns an extensive wardrobe of clothing and accessories worn between 1905 and 1925 by London socialite Heather Firbank who, according to her brother's biographer M.J. Benkovitz, "had beauty and adorned it with exquisite clothes of a heather colour to complement her name". Heather Firbank bought from many London dressmakers, particularly Lucile, the creator of this delicate gown.

In the first half of the 20th century most women in Japan continued to wear kimono. Although the cut remained the same, the designs on fashionable garments bore an unmistakable modern flavour as motifs were dramatically enlarged or distorted. Many kimono were made from meisen, a thick silk fabric that was both long-lasting and relatively inexpensive. Patterned with chemical dyes applied through stencils on to the threads before weaving, meisen became the favoured fabric of stylish, urban woman. This kimono, with its dynamic design of flying fish, is a striking example, the use of silver and lacquer threads adding an air of luxury to what is essentially an informal garment.

This dress was a specially commissioned from Christian Dior by Gloria Guinness, voted the world's second 'Best Dressed Woman' by Time magazine in 1962. It is a variation of Belle de Nuit, a dress in Dior's 1954 Spring/Summer collection. The original design featured straps, a fuller skirt and a plain silk stole rather than a bolero.

This dress was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth II from London couturier Norman Hartnell for her state visit to Paris in April 1957. The visit followed the Treaty of Rome, which created the European Economic Community (EEC). Showcasing beautiful couture embroidery techniques, the dress is embroidered with pearls, beads, brilliants and gold thread. The design makes diplomatic reference to French motifs, including daisies, crossed wheat sheaves and Napoleonic bees.

After training in textile design at London's Royal College of Art, in 1969 Zandra Rhodes created a set of textiles like the printed chiffon from which this kaftan was made, whose motifs were taken from knitting and embroidery stitches, called Knitted Circle. She then learnt how to cut patterns in order to produce her own clothes, basing the shape of the clothes on the textile print. Rhodes said, “I made swirling, dramatic shapes with no concessions to the saleable, the acceptable or the ordinary. The true Rhodes style came into being”.

This ensemble illustrates Rei Kawakubo's emphastically black collections of the 1980s. An asymmetrically patterned jumper of black hand-knitted wool utilises the potential of post-punk random holes.

This track suit is part of a group of early 2010s ensembles donated to the V&A by Charlie Porter, an influential British fashion journalist known for his understanding of contemporary menswear. From a distance, the textile may look like a traditional toile de Jouy print, but it depicts scenes from the London riots of 2011. Charlie Porter said, "I loved this look. It is the sort of piece where you think, 'Should I be wearing these in public? And then immediately think, I don't care.'"

It is challenging to take forward a fashion label decoupled from its founder. Since 2008, when Valentino Garavani retired, head designers Maria Grazia Chiuri (who moved to the house of Dior in 2017) and Pier Paolo Piccioli extended the firm’s emphasis on couture. Their collections celebrated traditional techniques combined with the occasional startling element, such as the flora and fauna depicted within the medallions of this evening dress. The dress was part of Valentino's Autumn/Winter 2013-14 haute couture collection, titled 'Wunderkammer' or cabinet of curiosities, and suggests a wonder and fascination with the natural world.