Film Review: The Devil Wears Prada II: Lots of Frothy Fun, Not So Much Devilry

The filmmakers commented on the state of journalism today, awash with algorithms, social media misinformation and the relentless churn of online content, yet this is glossed over and undercut by the film's sugary tone. Cover picture of Bibi Breslin in Pucci SS25 by Drew Vickers. 

By Laura O'Flanagan

Twenty years after the first instalment catapulted Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt onto Hollywood’s A-List, The Devil Wears Prada is back with a second incarnation. The sequel reunites the pair with Meryl Streep and Stanley Tucci for a fun, frothy – but not very devilish – time.

Set at Runway, a thinly veiled fictional version of Vogue magazine, much has changed in the world of journalism since the first film was released in 2006.

Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs has spent the intervening years becoming a “Serious Journalist”, with awards galore under her belt. In 2026’s precarious media landscape, though, her job is wiped out. She, somewhat miraculously, finds herself back at Runway as features editor, no longer a harried underling.

Delightfully, the gang is back together for part two. The Devil Wears Prada’s mastery was always its actors, and the returning main cast are in fine form here. Andy (Hathaway) now has an assured confidence that was just budding in the first film.

The growth in her character is believable and realistic, and as an actor, Hathaway is edging towards greatness, one teary-eyed smile at a time. Andy’s elevated position at Runway allows the dynamic between her and her icy boss, Miranda Priestley (Meryl Streep), to shift.

Miranda de-fanged

Fun is poked at Miranda’s behaviour, which is now subject to HR rules and regulations. Where once she struck fear into the hearts of all she encountered, delivering caustic lines in a low sardonic murmur, Streep’s performance, while fuller and more rounded, de-fangs Miranda.

With disappointingly fewer barbs, she is less “devil”, delivering a more complex portrait of a successful woman struggling to keep a dying industry afloat. Much of the villainy is handed instead to Emily (Emily Blunt). All eye rolls and sharp edges, Blunt has a ball reprising the role that made her a star.

She is given more screen time in this instalment, with a love interest and a life outside of work. She is magnetic in every frame she inhabits, bringing comedy and deliciously over-the-top cattiness.

Stanley Tucci’s Nigel, a relic of the bygone days of print fashion journalism, radiates a warmth that grounds the film. His endless patience with the nonsensical behaviour of those around him, delivered with Tucci’s characteristic panache, steadies the ship when all threatens to spiral into parody.

In 2026, the romantic comedy is a lesser spotted animal in Hollywood compared to when the first film was released. This sequel recalls familiar tropes of the early noughties rom-com: pop music blaring over street scenes of characters speaking on phones, quick cuts between fashion shows and urban life, big cities rendered in gloriously lit night scenes.

The “rom” part of rom-com, though, could have been left in the past for this sequel. Patrick Brammall is criminally underused as Peter, a love interest for Andy. Their dalliance adds little to her character or the story, and never meaningfully develops or resolves.

Journalism SOS

Story-wise, it feels as though the film-makers wanted to comment on the state of journalism. In today’s world awash with algorithms, misinformation and the relentless churn of online content, there was certainly potential to mine, but these themes are mentioned and then glossed over.

This would be forgivable, given the sugary tone of the film, but consequently the drama becomes a little convoluted and at times gets in the way of the relationship dynamics, which is really why we are all in the cinema in the first place. Minor characters played by B.J. Novak, Kenneth Branagh, Lucy Liu and Justin Theroux often lean too far into caricature and disrupt the tone of the film. Their inclusion is another unnecessary dilution of the core four’s chemistry.

The Devil Wears Prada 2 is a little long and Meryl Streep’s performance lacks the bite that made the first film so memorable. But getting to see Hathaway, Streep, Blunt and Tucci work together again is joyful and escapist.

This film won’t change your life. But it is not trying to. It tells you exactly what it is in the marketing: a celebratory reunion of the actors and a fun retreading of familiar ground. Go for the characters, stay for the nostalgia.

Laura O'Flanagan, PhD Candidate, School of English, Dublin City University

A Probe into ‘Forever Chemicals’ in Activewear Lays Bare Fashion’s Greenwashing Problem

Lululemon activewear is being investigated for previously using materials that contain PFAS, toxic forever chemicals. Scientists have discovered that these are absorbed through the skin during intense exercise. Cover picture of Bibi Breslin as Marilyn Monroe in Pucci Spring/Summer 2025 photographed by Drew Vickers. 

By Caroline Swee Lin Tan, RMIT University and Saniyat Islam, RMIT University

Have you ever paid more for a product because a brand told you it was good for you and the planet? Many activewear shoppers do exactly this, trusting that the “healthy” image on the label matches what is actually in the fabric. That trust is now being questioned.

The Texas Attorney General’s office has launched a formal investigation into the activewear brand Lululemon. The question: does its activewear contain PFAS, a group of toxic “forever chemicals”?

This sits uncomfortably with a brand built on wellness. Lululemon has denied the claims. It says it phased out PFAS in 2023 and that these chemicals had only ever been used in a small number of water-repellent items. No wrongdoing has been found.

But the case highlights a wider problem: a gap between what fashion brands promise and what is actually in their products.

An industry-wide habit

PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) are synthetic chemicals used to make fabrics resistant to water, stains and sweat. They have also been used in nonstick cookware and some food packaging.

They earned the name “forever chemicals” because they do not break down easily in the environment or our bodies. Instead, they accumulate over time.

This is not a single-brand issue; it is a widespread one. Their use runs across much of the fashion industry.

The issue first came to wide attention in 2011, when Greenpeace’s “Dirty Laundry” investigation named several global giants for links to dumping perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), now broadly classified as PFAS, into Chinese waterways.

The health risks of PFAS exposure

While most major brands promised to phase out PFAS by 2020, follow-up testing shows they still appear in leggings and sports bras across the sector. The transition has been slow because finding safer alternatives that perform just as well is both expensive and technically complex.

This matters because of how we wear activewear. Scientists have found that sweat can increase how much of these chemicals are absorbed through the skin during intense exercise.

Exposure has been linked to serious health risks, including kidney and testicular cancers, hormonal disruption, and immune system damage.

Brands that promote a “wellness” identity make the gap between marketing and chemistry hard to ignore.

The language of greenwashing

Walk into any sports store and you will see labels such as “clean”, “conscious” or “responsible”.

These words are reassuring, but they lack any legal definition under Australian law, meaning brands can use them without meeting a specific standard. That said, Australia’s consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is increasingly scrutinising such claims and has the power to take action against businesses that mislead consumers.

Research shows many companies use “green” language to build a positive image without making real environmental changes.

Evidence submitted to a 2023 Australian Senate inquiry into greenwashing highlighted that new buzzwords can be invented on social media in real time with zero oversight. This makes it almost impossible for shoppers to tell the difference between genuine sustainability and clever marketing.

Around 60% of green claims by European fashion giants have been found to be misleading, yet consumers still struggle to identify deceptive sustainability claims.

This is not the shopper’s fault. When a brand charges a premium for “wellness”, it is reasonable to expect those words to mean something concrete.

As the Texas Attorney General noted, companies should not

sell harmful, toxic materials to consumers at a premium price under the guise of wellness and sustainability.

The failure of voluntary standards

The real problem is the fashion system runs on self-regulation. Most sustainability standards in Australia are voluntary, a stark contrast to the European Union, where mandatory regulations are already coming into force.

For clothing brands, terms like ‘sustainable’ have no legal definition and no independent body verifies these claims. Andres Ayrton/Pexels

There are more than 100 voluntary certifications globally in the textile industry alone, yet they lack consistent definitions and independent oversight. Brands choose whether to follow them and report their own results, facing no real consequences if they fall short.

Regulators are finally starting to act. In 2022, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found 57% of businesses reviewed made questionable environmental claims, with clothing and footwear among the worst-performing sectors.

While guidelines released in December 2023 now require green claims to be backed by evidence, it is still easier for a brand to say it is “sustainable” than to prove it.

The Lululemon investigation is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to ask harder questions. When a brand uses a “clean” label, who checked it? What standards did they use? Right now, the industry does not have good answers.

Until we move from a system of voluntary promises to one of legal requirements, “sustainable” will remain a marketing choice rather than a guarantee.

Caroline Swee Lin Tan, Associate Professor in Fashion Entrepreneurship, RMIT University and Saniyat Islam, Associate Professor, Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University

We Need to Stop Pretending AI is Intelligent – Here’s How

Giving AI a human face, voice or tone is a dangerous act of cross-dressing. It triggers an automatic response in us andromorphic reflex.

By Guillaume Thierry, Bangor University

We are constantly fed a version of AI that looks, sounds and acts suspiciously like us. It speaks in polished sentences, mimics emotions, expresses curiosity, claims to feel compassion, even dabbles in what it calls creativity.

But here’s the truth: it possesses none of those qualities. It is not human. And presenting it as if it were? That’s dangerous. Because it’s convincing. And nothing is more dangerous than a convincing illusion.

In particular, general artificial intelligence — the mythical kind of AI that supposedly mirrors human thought — is still science fiction, and it might well stay that way.

What we call AI today is nothing more than a statistical machine: a digital parrot regurgitating patterns mined from oceans of human data (the situation hasn’t changed much since it was discussed here five years ago). When it writes an answer to a question, it literally just guesses which letter and word will come next in a sequence – based on the data it’s been trained on.

This means AI has no understanding. No consciousness. No knowledge in any real, human sense. Just pure probability-driven, engineered brilliance — nothing more, and nothing less.

So why is a real “thinking” AI likely impossible? Because it’s bodiless. It has no senses, no flesh, no nerves, no pain, no pleasure. It doesn’t hunger, desire or fear. And because there is no cognition — not a shred — there’s a fundamental gap between the data it consumes (data born out of human feelings and experience) and what it can do with them.

Philosopher David Chalmers calls the mysterious mechanism underlying the relationship between our physical body and consciousness the “hard problem of consciousness”. Eminent scientists have recently hypothesised that consciousness actually emerges from the integration of internal, mental states with sensory representations (such as changes in heart rate, sweating and much more).

Given the paramount importance of the human senses and emotion for consciousness to “happen”, there is a profound and probably irreconcilable disconnect between general AI, the machine, and consciousness, a human phenomenon.

The master

Before you argue that AI programmers are human, let me stop you there. I know they’re human. That’s part of the problem. Would you entrust your deepest secrets, life decisions, emotional turmoil, to a computer programmer? Yet that’s exactly what people are doing — just ask Claude, GPT-4.5, Gemini … or, if you dare, Grok.

Giving AI a human face, voice or tone is a dangerous act of digital cross-dressing. It triggers an automatic response in us, an anthropomorphic reflex, leading to aberrant claims whereby some AIs are said to have passed the famous Turing test (which tests a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent, human-like behaiour). But I believe that if AIs are passing the Turing test, we need to update the test.

The AI machine has no idea what it means to be human. It cannot offer genuine compassion, it cannot foresee your suffering, cannot intuit hidden motives or lies. It has no taste, no instinct, no inner compass. It is bereft of all the messy, charming complexity that makes us who we are.

More troubling still: AI has no goals of its own, no desires or ethics unless injected into its code. That means the true danger doesn’t lie in the machine, but in its master — the programmer, the corporation, the government. Still feel safe?

And please, don’t come at me with: “You’re too harsh! You’re not open to the possibilities!” Or worse: “That’s such a bleak view. My AI buddy calms me down when I’m anxious.”

Am I lacking enthusiasm? Hardly. I use AI every day. It’s the most powerful tool I’ve ever had. I can translate, summarise, visualise, code, debug, explore alternatives, analyse data — faster and better than I could ever dream to do it myself.

I’m in awe. But it is still a tool — nothing more, nothing less. And like every tool humans have ever invented, from stone axes and slingshots to quantum computing and atomic bombs, it can be used as a weapon. It will be used as a weapon.

Need a visual? Imagine falling in love with an intoxicating AI, like in the film Her. Now imagine it “decides” to leave you. What would you do to stop it? And to be clear: it won’t be the AI rejecting you. It’ll be the human or system behind it, wielding that tool become weapon to control your behaviour.

Removing the mask

So where am I going with this? We must stop giving AI human traits. My first interaction with GPT-3 rather seriously annoyed me. It pretended to be a person. It said it had feelings, ambitions, even consciousness.

That’s no longer the default behaviour, thankfully. But the style of interaction — the eerily natural flow of conversation — remains intact. And that, too, is convincing. Too convincing.

We need to de-anthropomorphise AI. Now. Strip it of its human mask. This should be easy. Companies could remove all reference to emotion, judgement or cognitive processing on the part of the AI. In particular, it should respond factually without ever saying “I”, or “I feel that”… or “I am curious”.

Will it happen? I doubt it. It reminds me of another warning we’ve ignored for over 20 years: “We need to cut CO₂ emissions.” Look where that got us. But we must warn big tech companies of the dangers associated with the humanisation of AIs. They are unlikely to play ball, but they should, especially if they are serious about developing more ethical AIs.

For now, this is what I do (because I too often get this eerie feeling that I am talking to a synthetic human when using ChatGPT or Claude): I instruct my AI not to address me by name. I ask it to call itself AI, to speak in the third person, and to avoid emotional or cognitive terms.

If I am using voice chat, I ask the AI to use a flat prosody and speak a bit like a robot. It is actually quite fun and keeps us both in our comfort zone.

Guillaume Thierry, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Bangor University

Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show Reveals a Spectacular 125 Years of Runway History

The life-size, 35-metre-tall rocket ship at Karl Lagerfeld's Chanel show that formed the backdrop to the Autumn/Winter 2017collection at the Grand Palais in Paris. Cover picture of Gruuve chair by Patricia Urquiola in Milan by Jay Zoo for DAM

By Mal James

Fashion shows can often feel exclusive, reserved for the very rich, the very famous or the very well-connected. This perception has been aided by depictions of the catwalk in film and TV, think The Devil Wears Prada, Zoolander, Absolutely Fabulous, which simply confirm the widely held view of fashion as synonymous with artifice and superficiality.

Yet, while the catwalk is undoubtedly a stage for pomp and social peacocking, it is also a serious business. It can make or break a collection’s success, and launch designers and models into the fashion stratosphere. Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show at the V&A in Dundee unveils this reality, offering an access-all-areas glimpse into the intricate world of fashion, revealing great complexity beyond the perceived superficiality.

This exhibition is superbly co-curated by the museum’s Kirsty Hassard and Svetlana Panova, along with Jochen Eisenbrand and Katharina Krawcyzck of the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, where the show originated. It chronicles fashion’s 125-year catwalk journey, exploring its rich history and enduring cultural significance.

It was an Englishman, Charles Frederick Worth, who pioneered the catwalk in mid 19th-century Paris, where he revolutionised fashion presentations by using live models instead of static mannequins. Runway shows allowed models to showcase complete outfits and provided wealthy clients with a more immersive view of Worth’s designs.

By the early 1900s, these fashion parades held in Parisian ballrooms started to evolve into more theatrical events. This trend continued into the 1920s, when shows grew increasingly spectacular and decadent, with Gabrielle Chanel famously presenting models descending the mirrored staircase in her iconic atelier at 31 rue Cambon, Paris.

Fashion and history

On loan from the Balenciaga archive, and seen for the first time in the UK, there is an exquisite array of outfits presented on miniature wire mannequins. This display describes how, in 1945, as Paris emerged from Nazi occupation, the city faced a shortage of materials, making conventional fashion shows impossible. Titled “théâtre de la mode”, this ingenious solution presented haute couture at micro scale to buyers, press and clients, allowing Paris to reclaim its status as the fashion capital of the world.

The exhibition shows how post second world war, catwalk shows expanded in scale, ambition and location, with designers keen to make a lasting impression. André Courrèges and Paco Rabanne were pioneers in the 1960s, while from the 1980s onwards, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier helped to modernise presentations, connecting them with pop culture and mass audiences.

The emergence of the “supermodels” in the late 1980s and 1990s helped to turn catwalks into cultural phenomena. Groundbreaking shows, such as Versace’s spring/summer 1991, where models who were stars in their own right walked to George Michael’s Freedom, highlighted a dynamic synergy between fashion and pop culture.

By the late 20th century, designers including Alexander McQueen were creating unforgettable fashion moments, such as the No. 13 collection (spring/summer 1999), where model Shalom Harlow wore a white dress that was sprayed by two robots.

Notably, the exhibit dedicated to Hussein Chalayan showcases his contribution towards the transformation of fashion shows into more artistic and cerebral experiences. His 2000 After Words collection, featuring wearable furniture, challenged traditional norms and paved the way for more artistic presentations.

Spectacle, innovation, commerce

There is plenty of fashion spectacle throughout, the exhibition excelling with a curated selection of iconic pieces from the likes of Viktor & Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Loewe, Chanel, Prada, Louis Vuitton, Yohji Yamamoto and Iris van Herpen – the range is dazzling.

I was captivated by the voluminous but solemn blue Balenciaga velvet dress from the spring/summer 2020 collection by Georgian designer Demna Gvasalia. Evoking a Victorian silhouette, yet with no decoration and a tailored bodice, it reflects fashion’s historical roots in contrast with unfussy modern design.

The powerful silhouette and electric blue tone bring a seriousness to an otherwise radical or performative aesthetic. Positioned in the exhibition, it reminds us how modernity is always tethered to historical influences.

The exhibition showcases how catwalks have become crucial for brand marketing, merging art, commerce and entertainment, while engaging global audiences through digital channels. It includes invitations and artwork from key designers, along with miniature models of Chanel’s 2014 Supermarket and 2017 Space Rocket shows, offering insights into the intricate yet monumental scale of catwalk productions.

The curators have seamlessly integrated Scotland’s contribution to catwalk history too, charting the influence of fabrics like tweed and tartan, and featuring photographs from Glasgow’s Empire Exhibition in 1938, possibly Scotland’s earliest fashion show. There are also fascinating images from Dior’s inaugural Scottish shows in 1955 in Glasgow and at Gleneagles, echoed almost 70 years later with a 2024 Dior show (under designer Maria Grazia Chuiri) where models walked the exquisite topiaried gardens of Drummond Castle in Perthshire.

The exhibition includes the coveted label Le Kilt, featuring an outfit from the 2024 show, created in collaboration with Dior, further highlighting the the fashion house’s Scotland connection. Prominent Scottish designers are also featured, such as Christopher Kane, Charles Jeffrey and the poignant inclusion of an outfit by the late Pam Hogg who died last November.

The exhibition highlights how catwalks can mirror societal changes and evolving beauty standards. I was thrilled to see the inclusion of Rick Owens’ Spring/Summer 2016 presentation, where a 40-strong group of female “steppers” stomped down the runway in poses and expressions that defied typical beauty expectations.

The show caters to diverse audiences and ages, featuring dynamic catwalk and backstage photography by British photographer Robert Fairer, who has captured the energy and spirit of the fashion industry since the early 1990s. Engaging and interactive exhibits also let audiences in on the inner workings of fashion shows, including hairstyling and make-up.

Fun selfie opportunities allow visitors to engage with fashion’s more flamboyant side which make you feel like part of the exhibition, rather than merely an observer. This excellent V&A show truly challenges and expands our perception of the catwalk, leading audiences towards a lasting and deeper respect for the art of fashion and its important and enduring influence.

Mal James, Personal Chair of Fashion Design, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh

Milan Design Week: Get into the Gruuve - Fluid Forms and Free Thinking by Patricia Urquiola

The Gruuve sofa by Patricia Urquiola that is being exhibited during the Salone del Mobile. Cover picture of the Gruuve chair at the Moroso showroom in Milan by Jay Zoo for DAM.

At Milan Design Week, where experimentation sets the tone for how we will live tomorrow, Moroso introduces a new kind of statement piece with Gruuve by Patricia Urquiola, a design that shifts seating from static arrangement to immersive experience. It unfolds as a fluid composition of forms that invites movement, interaction, and spontaneity, signalling a decisive move away from more rigid living room conventions toward something altogether more expressive and communal, writes Antonio Visconti

Spanish Designer Patricia Urquiola

in her studio. 

IN Milan, a sinuous new seating system by Patricia Urquiola that reimagines the living room as something fluid, social, and unexpected was unveiled at Moroso. Neither conventional sofa nor sculptural installation, Gruuve is conceived as a dynamic landscape, an invitation to inhabit space differently.

Urquiola’s latest work builds on her earlier Lowseat concept from 2000, but here the language is more grounded and generous in scale. The modules are fuller, their rounded silhouettes extending all the way to the floor, creating a sense of visual continuity and physical presence. There is a deliberate softness to the forms, yet also a structural clarity that anchors the system in contemporary interiors.

The spirit of the 1970s hovers over Gruuve, not as nostalgia but as attitude. This was a decade that challenged domestic life, and Urquiola taps into that same nonconformist energy. The system’s irregular, flowing modules can be arranged freely, linear, angular, or labyrinthine, encouraging users to choreograph their own environments. 

What distinguishes Gruuve is its duality of use. The front offers a more traditional seating posture, while the reverse invites a looser, informal occupation. This subtle shift transforms the sofa into a social catalyst, supporting conversation from multiple directions and dissolving the hierarchy of “front” and “back.” In open-plan interiors or hospitality settings, the effect is particularly striking: Gruuve becomes a kind of soft architecture, shaping movement and interaction.

The spirit of the 1970s hovers over Gruuve, not as nostalgia but as attitude

Gruuve sofa with its dynamic curve and modular design. 

The collection extends beyond modular seating to include an armchair and chaise longue, reinforcing its versatility across residential and public contexts. Upholstery plays a key role in its identity, with custom textiles designed by Urquiola adding a graphic layer that enhances the system’s sense of rhythm and movement.

For Moroso, a brand long associated with experimental design, Gruuve represents a confident continuation of its dialogue between craft and innovation. For Urquiola, it is another chapter in a career defined by material sensitivity and spatial intelligence. Here, those qualities converge in a piece that feels both instinctive and highly considered.

In an era where the boundaries between living, working, and socialising continue to blur, Gruuve offers another proposition: a seating system not just to sit on, but to gather within.

Frank Gehry, the Architect of the Unconventional, the Accidental, and the Inspiring

The sinuous forms of Frank Gehry's Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Photograph: Sean Pavone/Getty Images. Cover picture of the architect's Guggenheim Museum and Bilbao River. Photograph: Maremagnum/Getty Images.

By Michael I. Ostwald

Architect Frank Gehry in his studio

with models of his designs. 

In April 2005, The Simpsons featured an episode where Marge, embarrassed by her hometown’s reputation for being uneducated and uncultured, invites a world-famous architect to design a new concert hall for the city.

The episode cuts to the architect, Frank Gehry (playing himself), outside his house in Santa Monica, receiving Marge’s letter. 

He is frustrated by the request and crumples the letter, throwing it to the ground. Looking down, the creased and ragged paper inspires him, and the episode cuts to a model of his concert hall for Springfield, which copies the shape of the crumpled letter. 

By building Gehry’s design, the people of Springfield hoped to send a signal to the world that a new era of culture had arrived. As it often did, this episode of The Simpsons references a real-life phenomenon, which Gehry was credited with triggering, the “Bilbao effect”.

In 1991, the city of Bilbao in northern Spain sought to enhance its economic and cultural standing by establishing a major arts centre. Gehry was commissioned to design the Bilbao Guggenheim, proposing a 57-metre-high building, a spiralling vortex of titanium and glass, along the banks of the Nervión River

Using software developed for aerospace industries, Gehry designed a striking, photogenic building, sharply contrasting with the city’s traditional stone and masonry streetscapes.

Finished in 1997, the response to Gehry’s building was overwhelming. Bilbao was transformed into an international tourist destination, revitalising the city and boosting its cultural credentials and economic prospects. As a result, many cities tried to reproduce the so-called “Bilbao effect” by combining iconic architecture and the arts to encourage a cultural renaissance.

Gehry, who has died at 96, leaves a powerful legacy, visible in many major cities, in the media, in galleries and in popular culture.

Guggenheim Museum, Avenida Abandoibarra, Bilbao, Spain. Elizabeth Hanchett/Unsplash

An architect’s life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg in Toronto, Canada, in 1929 and emigrated to Los Angeles in the late 1940s, where he changed his surname to Gehry. He studied architecture and urban planning and established a successful commercial practice in 1962.

It wasn’t until the late 1970s, when he began experimenting with alterations and additions to his own house, that he began to develop his signature approach to architecture. An approach that was both visionary and confronting.

Gehry and his son, Alejandro, in the yard in front of his self-designed home, Santa Monica, California, January 1980. Susan Wood/Getty Images

In 1977, Gehry purchased a colonial bungalow on a typical suburban street in Santa Monica. Soon after, he began peeling back its cladding and exposing its structural frame. He added a jumble of plywood panels, corrugated metal walls, and chain-link fencing, giving the impression of a house in a perpetual state of demolition or reconstruction.

Its fragmented, unfinished expression offended the neighbours but also led to his being exhibited in the landmark 1988 Museum of Modern Art’s Deconstructivist Architecture show.

At this event, Gehry’s house was featured alongside a range of subversive, anti-establishment works, catapulting him to international fame.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, United States of America. Tim Cheung/Unsplash

Unlike other architects featured in the exhibition – such as Coop Himmelblau, Rem Koolhaas and Daniel Libeskind – Gehry was not driven by a political or philosophical stance. Instead, he was interested in how people would react to the experience of architecture.

It was only after the Bilbao Guggenheim was completed that the world could see this vision.

Throughout the 2000s, Gehry completed a range of significant buildings, led by the Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in Los Angeles, which has a similar style to the Bilbao Guggenheim.

Gehry’s Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle is a composition of anodised purple, gold, silver and sky-blue forms, resembling the remnants of a smashed electric guitar.

Museum of Pop Culture, Seattle, Washington, United States of America. Getty Images

The Marqués de Riscal Vineyard Hotel (2006) in Elciego, Spain, features steel ribbons in Burgundy-pink and Verdelho-gold. The Louis Vuitton Foundation (2014) in Paris has 12 large glass sails, swirling around an “iceberg” of concrete panels.

Gehry only completed one building in Australia, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building (2014) in Sydney. Its design, an undulating form clad in custom-made bricks, was inspired by a crumpled brown paper bag. Marge Simpson would have approved.

Recognition and reflection

The highest global honour an architect can receive is the Pritzker Prize, often called the “Nobel prize for architecture”. Gehry was awarded this prize in 1989, with the jury praising his “controversial, but always arresting body of work” which was “iconoclastic, rambunctious and impermanent”.

While the Pritzker Prize is often regarded as a capstone for a career, most of Gehry’s major works were completed after the award.

Tempranillo vines surround the hotel at Marqués de Riscal winery, Elciego, Spain. David Silverman/Getty Images

Gehry revelled in experimentation, taking artistic inspiration from complex natural forms and constructing them using advanced technology. Over the last three decades, his firm continued to produce architecture that was both strikingly sculptural and playfully whimsical.

He ultimately regretted appearing on The Simpsons, feeling it devalued the complex process he followed. His architecture was not random; an artist’s eye guided it, and a sculptor’s hand created it. It was not just any crumpled form, but the perfect one for each site and client.

He sometimes joked about completing his home in Santa Monica, even humorously ending his acceptance speech for the Pritzker Prize by saying he might use his prize money to do this. Today, on the corner of 22nd Street and Washington Avenue, partly shielded by trees, Gehry’s house remains forever a work in progress. Its uncompromising yet joyful presence has endured for almost 50 years.

Michael J. Ostwald, Professor of Architectural Analytics, UNSW Sydney

Last Weekend of the Exhibition at the NGV: How Self-Taught, Self-Made Mavericks Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo Redefined Punk

Rihanna wearing Commes des Garcons by Rai Kawakubo at The Met Gala in 2017. Photograph: Francois Durand/Getty 

By Sasha Grishin

Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo are two fashion designers who redefined “the look” of fashion on the street from the 1970s onwards.

They were born a year apart in the early 1940s, one in Derbyshire in England, the other in Tokyo in Japan. They were both largely self-taught, self-made mavericks who contributed to, and redefined, the punk scene in the 60s and 70s. Their use of unconventional materials and designs shocked the fashion establishment and helped to establish alternative realities of accepted dress codes.

The great achievement of many revolutionary National Gallery of Victoria exhibitions is the strategy of juxtaposing two vibrant artistic personalities, whereby a new and unexpected reality is created that allows us to establish a fresh perspective.

World’s End, London (fashion house), Vivienne Westwood (designer), Malcolm McLaren (designer), outfit from the Savage collection, spring–summer 1982. Pillar Hall, Olympia, October 22 1981. Photo © Robyn Beeche

Westwood and Kawakubo are household names in the fashion industry. But by bringing them together and clustering their works under five thematic categories, new insights appear.

It is a spectacular selection of over 140 key and signature pieces drawn from the growing holdings of the NGV supplemented with strategic loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Palais Galliera, Paris; the Vivienne Westwood archive; and the National Gallery of Australia, among others.

Punk and provocation

Westwood, subsequently Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood, initially in collaboration with Malcolm McLaren of Sex Pistols fame, helped to mould and dress the London punk scene.

For her, dress was never ideologically neutral but a lightning rod for social change.

Vivienne Westwood (right) with the model Jordan (Pamela Rooke) and another punk, London, 12 April 1977. Photo © Tim Jenkins / WWD / Penske Media via Getty Images

Pornographic slogans, emblems anchored in fetish practices and sadomasochism, and dresses made of plastics and supplemented with safety pins and chains subverted the comfortable status quo and allowed her fashion sense to penetrate into the middle classes.

What was once outrageous became something daringly respectable.

Kawakubo was born into an academic family and came to fashion design when making her own clothing in the 1960s under the label Comme des Garçons (“like the boys”) in Tokyo.

Conceived as anti-fashion, sober and severe, she made largely monochrome garments – black, dark grey and white – for women, with frayed, unfinished edges, holes and asymmetric shapes.

A men’s line was added in 1978. The number of outlets in Japan grew into the hundreds. Later, her designs established a strong presence in Paris.

The themes that bring the two fashion designers together in this exhibition include the opening section, Punk and Provocation. Both designers drew on the ethos of punk with its desire for change and the rejection of old ways.

Breaking orthodoxies

A second section is termed Rupture for the conscious desire to break with convention, whether it be Westwood’s Nostalgia of Mud collection of 1983 or Kawakubo’s Not Making Clothes collection of 2014.

There is a strongly expressed desire to break with the prevailing orthodoxies.

World’s End, London (fashion house), Vivienne Westwood (designer), Malcolm McLaren (designer) Outfit from the Nostalgia of Mud collection, autumn–winter 1982–83. Pillar Hall, Olympia, London, 24 March 1982. Photo © Robyn Beeche

A third section, Reinvention, hints at a postmodernist predilection of both artists to delve into traditions of art history and from unexpected sources, such as Rococo paintings, revive elements from tailoring traditions, ruffles and frills.

Although both artists are rule breakers, they do not act from a position of ignorance. It is from a detailed, and at times pedantic, knowledge of garments from the past.

Comme des Garçons, Tokyo (fashion house), Rei Kawakubo (designer) Look 2, from the Smaller is Stronger collection, autumn–winter 2025. Paris, 8 March 2025. Image © Comme des Garçons. Model: Mirre Sonders

In the late 1980s, Westwood revived English tweeds and Scottish tartans. Kawakubo drew on the basics of traditional tailoring in menswear and applied it to unorthodox patterns and materials in her garments for women.

The ‘ideal’ body

A fourth section, The Body: Freedom and Restraints, perhaps most problematically challenges the conventions of idealised female beauty and the objectification of the female body.

It is argued in the exhibition that Westwood’s Erotic Zones collection (1995), and Kawakubo’s The Future of Silhouette (2017–18), may be viewed as attempts to redefine the female body.

Sarah Jessica Parker wearing a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown on the set of Sex and the City: The Movie, New York City, October 12 2007. Photo © James Devaney / WireImage via Getty Images

Kawakubo’s Body meets dress-Dress meets body collection, presented in 1996, systematically interrogates boundaries between bodies and garments. Westwood, at a similar time, played with padding and compression in her designs to question the ideals of a sexual, “ideal” body.

The final section of the exhibition is appropriately termed The Power of Clothes. This returns us to the recurring theme of employing fashion to make a statement concerning social change, whether this be the punk revolution or protests connected with climate change.

Installation view of Westwood | Kawakubo on display from 7 December 2025 to 19 April 2026, at NGV International, Melbourne. Vivienne Westwood Look 19, Jacket, shirt, knickers, bum pad, leggings, hat, crop, boots, 1994 and Look 34 Cape, shirt, corset, and boots and hat 1994 and Look 78, Dress, bum pad and shoes, 1994 from the On Liberty collection, 1994-1995. Courtesy of Vivienne Westwood Heritage. Photo: Sean Fennessy

Through their work, both Westwood and Kawakubo argue fashion is a political act and make broader social statements through their garments, particularly women’s wear.

Both fashion designers were prominent polemicists. As quoted in the exhibition, Westwood in 2011 declared,

I can use fashion as a medium to express my ideas to fight for a better world.

Kawakubo is quoted as saying in 2016,

Society needs something new, something with the power to provide stimulus and the drive to move us forward […] Maybe fashion alone is not enough to change our world, but I consider it my mission to keep pushing and to continue to propose new ideas.

This exhibition will be seen as historically significant and it is accompanied with a weighty catalogue. The NGV has established major collections of over 400 pieces of Westwood’s and Kawakubo’s work that lays the foundation for any further serious exploration of fashion from this period anywhere in the world.

Westwood | Kawakubo is at the National Gallery of Victoria until April 19.

Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University