From Dior to Cartier, 7 fashion exhibitions from around the world to visit this autumn

Schiaparelli recently announced their first-ever fashion exhibit, Fashion Becomes Art, at London's Victoria & Albert Memorial Museum. Set to display from March 21, 2026, it will offer audiences a chance to dive into the brand and its iconic creator, Elsa Schiaparelli's life. The Royal Collection Trust also announced a showcase of Queen Elizabeth II's wardrobe at Buckingham Palace in the spring of 2026. Many would argue that runway shows and red carpet events are the most exciting events for fashion currently. However, it's the fashion exhibitions that allow style aficionados a hands-on experience with the enviable world of haute couture and high-end dressmaking. The first Monday of May has long left us, and we still have a month before fashion virtuosos return to the runway; making this the perfect time for couture lovers to turn their gaze towards museums and exhibits during the upcoming season of autumn 2025. 

Whether it's a cultural moment braved through personal style, the life of a cult figure or a high-end exhibit in horticultural paradise, these 7 fashion exhibitions from around the world are the worth visiting this fall.

(Also read: Buckingham Palace will host an exhibition of Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe)

1. Superfine: Tailoring Black Style at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

This year's Met Gala theme, based on dandyism, was a rendition of black culture in the United States of America and Europe as well as their fight for liberation expressed through the medium of fashion. The outline for the theme was extracted from Monica L. Miller’s book Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. The theme was also the first one dedicated to menswear in nearly 20 years. Viewers of the exhibit can expect pieces from late Virgil Abloh’s celebrated tenure at Louis Vuitton, Grace Wales Bonner’s decadent reinterpretation of tailoring and Brooks Brothers garments from the 50s. The exhibition is on display through October 26, 2025. 

2. Cartier at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London

A major exhibition featuring more than 350 items, including precious jewels, historic gemstones, iconic watches and clocks, it charts Cartier's legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the 20th century. The exhibition is telling of Cartier influence on fashion through jewellery. Opening with an introduction to Louis, Pierre and Jacques Cartier, the exhibition tells the story of how their united ambition grew the family business into a global giant. Highlights include the never-before-exhibited Opal Tiara, commissioned by Mary Cavendish, the Marchioness of Hartington in 1937; worn as a necklace at Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953. Currently displayed at London's Victoria and Albert Memorial, the exhibition is on until November 16, 2025. 

3. Paul Poiret: Fashion is a Feast at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris

This exhibition is the first major monograph dedicated to Paul Poiret, a key figure in Parisian haute couture, who liberated women from binding corsets through silhouette play. A soldier in the first world war, Poiret was a designer, both pre- and post-war. His war-time memories served as the muse for his designs. He catered to an affluent, cultured clientele eager for novelty. The exhibition highlights the beginnings of Paul Poiret’s career, tracing the foundations of his creative genius at Doucet and Worth. It gradually reveals his relationships and highlights his innovations. The exhibition is live until January 11, 2026. 

4. Christian Dior: Jardins Rêvés at SCAD FASH Lacoste, France

Select garments from Christian Dior's collection are on display here, showcasing how his love for gardening influenced his designs. Christian Dior’s passion for gardening took root in his early childhood spent with his mother, Madeleine and sister, Catherine in the gardens of their family home, Villa Les Rhumbs in Normandy. These cherished memories would later inspire the designs and silhouettes of some of his most iconic creations and memorable fragrances, such as Miss Dior. The exhibition opens with an illustrated chronology, spanning 1905 to 2025, giving way to a veritable fashion herbarium of floral- and garden-inspired silhouettes; including Christian Dior’s early designs, as well as collections dreamt up by the house’s successive artistic directors, Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons, and Maria Grazia Chiuri. The exhibition is on display until September 28, 2025.

5. Louvre Couture—Art and Fashion: Statement Pieces at the Louvre Museum, Paris

If you are planning a trip to Paris this month, then hurry to the Louvre. The most famous museum in the world, where most queue up to see Leonardo DaVinci's Mona Lisa, has fashion lovers striding in to cover a nearly 9,000-square-metre space that is filled with 65 designs on display and accessories. It showcases the close historical dialogue that continues to take place between the world of fashion and the department’s greatest masterpieces, from Byzantium to the Second Empire. Each of these garments and accessories is on loan from most fashion houses, both long-standing and recent, in Paris and throughout the world. The exhibition is on until August 24, 2025.

6. Cecil Beaton’s Garden Party at the Garden Museum, UK

Best known as a fashion photographer, Cecil Beaton was a man of many talents. Besides being a photographer, he was also an accomplished costume and set designer in film, theatre and ballet, as well as a gifted artist. The exhibition at Garden Party examines how his work was woven together through gardens and flowers. Photographs, paintings, drawings, costume and set designs explore the role flowers played in developing Cecil Beaton’s creative practice; from the lavish floral installations he created for parties with flowers from his own gardens to painted and fresh flowers used as backdrops for fashion photography and royal portraits to the famous floral costumes in My Fair Lady. The exhibition is on display until September 21, 2025. 

7. Leigh Bowery! at the Tate Modern, London

Leigh Bowery’s short but extraordinary life left its imprint on the world of art and fashion. He was a fashion designer, an artist, a performer, a model, a TV personality, a club promoter, and a musician. The exhibition at London's Tate Modern covers how he reimagined clothing and makeup as forms of painting and sculpture, tested the limits of decorum, and celebrated the body as a shape-shifting tool with the power to challenge norms of aesthetics, sexuality and gender. The collection is on display for the rest of August 2025. 

(Also read: 10 fashion designer documentaries to watch)