Watch curators from our Fashion & Textiles and Asia departments as they join forces to unpick the mysteries of this intriguing ensemble...

At first glance we appear to have an 18th-century gentleman's waistcoat and banyan – a popular European style of gown, not dissimilar to a dressing gown – which has been made in Italy. However, a close inspection reveals that the fabric is a luxurious Chinese silk embroidered with peacock feather threads, that was once destined to become an impressive dragon robe for the Chinese Imperial Court.

Join Susan and Sau Fong as they compare the ensemble with historic dragon robes in our collection to understand how the Italian tailor skilfully adapted this piece into a European-style garment, and ponder who it might have belonged to.

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

Together we discover a new fashion temple in Paris: the Dior Gallery! Super opportunity to review or learn about the house's history, where it all began. The spectacular staircase covered with miniature dresses, the Diorama - ma Mia! The beginnings of Christian Dior! His iconic dresses! His office! His cabin! Hélène Starkman and Olivier Flaviano, the people in charge of the place, give us plenty of anecdotes.

Film in French with English subtitles.

A tour of the Mode Museum in Antwerp, Belgium. Guided by the museum's Director and Chief Curator, Kaat Debo.

Revealing and celebrating the male body, Edward Crutchley's flamboyant fashions subvert the history of menswear, disregarding traditional gender norms.

This film takes a detailed look at a sumptuous gown by Crutchley, with a corseted bodice which was inspired by an 18th-century robe à l'anglaise, but adapted to fit a male torso. The dress comes from his Spring/Summer 2022 collection, which references the history of queer spaces in London, and specifically the work of 18th-century textile designer Anna Maria Garthwaite – an outsider working in a male-dominated industry.

Find out more about the Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear exhibition: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/fas...

See more in our Fashion collection: https://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/fas...

Fashion in Motion is a series of live fashion shows at the V&A featuring leading fashion designers from across the world.

The V&A went behind the scenes to find out about what inspired Fredrik Tjærandsen's colourful yet enigmatic bubble garments, and what they represent.

See the show highlights here:

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

The first UK exhibition exploring the work of Spanish fashion designer Cristobal Balenciaga opened in London on May 2018.

The exhibition at London's Victoria and Albert Museum primarily focused the designer's most creative years in Paris in the 1950s and 1960s - but also examined his Basque roots and his legacy on contemporary designers.

Peek inside the now-closed exhibition celebrating the rare genius of Martin Margiela.

The exhibition presented the most comprehensive retrospective of the Belgian designer’s work to date. With more than 130 pieces on view, it followed Margiela’s oeuvre from his first collection, shown in 1988 in Marais, to his very last day at the namesake brand.

How might we design clothes without harming the environment? Fashion curator Elisabeth Murray shares how Vivienne Westwood designed a dress using naturally sourced Amazonian wild rubber.

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

Join dressmaking expert and V&A volunteer, Sue Clark, as she examines one of the most iconic ensembles in post-war fashion, Christian Dior's 'Bar' suit. How was the suit constructed? And why was it hailed as 'the New Look'?

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

Join Senior Curator Sonnet Stanfill as she examines Schiaparelli's uncanny evening dress, superimposed with the outline of skeletal bones.

Get closer than ever before and see how padding, zips, and quilting have been used to construct such an elegant yet surreal garment.

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

Elsa Schiaparelli (1890 – 1973) pushed boundaries as a fashion designer, transforming functional items of clothing into unique style statements.

Her evening suits embody the height of 1930s haute couture, owing to their intricate embellishments, luxurious textiles and severe tailoring. Her collaborations with Surrealist artists like Salvador Dali produced provocative, even shocking designs. Theatrical accessories such as the shoe-shaped hat, her ‘Tears’ dress patterned to look like torn flesh, and the uncanny ‘Skeleton’ dress complete with the dramatic outline of bones, represent Schiaparelli at her most radical.

Find out more: vam.ac.uk/collections/fashion

// Listen with headphones for the best experience //

Follow Senior Textile Conservator Susana Fajardo as she works on a sequinned clown costume worn by 20th-century clown Jackie Sloan.

Sound designer and performance-maker Julie Rose Bower has documented Susana's steps using ambisonic sound, letting us get closer to the object than ever before.

See the painstakingly delicate processes involved as dust is carefully removed, corrosion is reduced, and sequins are gently cleaned.

Take a look at more costumes in the V&A's Theatre and Performance collection here.

Join Co-curator of the Mary Quant exhibition, Stephanie Wood, as she explores Quant's trailblazing PVC rainwear collection, launched in 1963.

Quant's innovative experiments with this futuristic plastic-coated cotton were worn by celebrities like Cynthia Lennon, and graced the cover of Vogue magazine. Find out why Quant was "bewitched… with this super shiny man-made stuff and it’s shrieking colours", and what makes the 'Christopher Robin' rain smock in our collection one of the rarest examples.

Find out more: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/mary-quant

Loic Prigent visits the LUXES exhibition at the MUSEE DES ARTS DECORATIFS in Paris, and is guided by the two LUXES exhibition curators, Cloé Pitiot and Olivier Gabet who explain several of the masterpieces on display.

The exhibition explores perceptions of luxury through the ages and from all corners of the world. Showcasing over-100 objects, the majority of which come from the permanent collections of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, loans come from the Musée du Louvre, the Louvre Abu Dhabi, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Musée du Quai Branly, as well as from some of France’s most prestigious design houses.

For more information about the exhibition click here.

Join Tate curators Gregor Muir and Fiontán Moran as they discuss Warhol through the lens of the immigrant story, his LGBTQI identity and concerns with death and religion.

Meet the man behind the brand. It's a Warhol you might not know, with some artworks you may not have seen before.

PUNK: Chaos to Couture, organised by The Costume Institute, examines punk's impact on high fashion from the movement's birth in the early 1970s through its continuing influence today. Featuring approximately one hundred designs for men and women, the exhibition includes original punk garments and recent, directional fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear borrow punk's visual symbols. Here, curator Andrew Bolton takes us through the groundbreaking exhibition and discusses the relationship between the punk concept of "do-it-yourself" and the couture concept of "made-to-measure.

See the exhibition's web feature: www.metmuseum.org/punk

Gallery views of The Costume Institute's Autumn 2016 exhibition, "Masterworks: Unpacking Fashion," narrated by Assistant Curator Jessica Regan.

Rei Kawakubo is the first living designer given a solo show at The Met's Costume Institute since 1983. See her work up close in this 360 video.

A virtual tour and documentary of the Christian Dior, Designer of Dreams Exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

For the Vogue France article regarding the virtual exhibition please click here.

A virtual tour of the current Comme Des Garçons Exhibition at National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne. For the e-book accompanying the exhibition please click here.

Andrew Bolton has curated some of the most innovative exhibits the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute has ever displayed.

Tour the famed museum with Bolton himself as he discusses the role of fashion as art and previews this spring's 2018 exhibition, Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.

London-based fashion designer Gareth Pugh is known for his experiments with shape and volume. He employs unusual materials that are difficult to work with, such as PVC and rubber, to make strong silhouettes. Like Cristóbal Balenciaga, he produces shapes that abstract the body. Here, Pugh describes his choice of materials and techniques, and compare's Balenciaga's signature sculptural quality with his own design aesthetic.

Known as 'The Master' of haute couture, Cristóbal Balenciaga produced some of the most influential designs in the history of modern fashion. We invited students from the London College of Fashion to investigate iconic garments by Balenciaga, deconstructing his processes and revealing secrets of their making and construction using digital pattern-cutting technology.