V&A Dundee exhibition set to connect Alexander McQueen, Freddie Mercury, Björk and Star Wars

Now Scotland’s latest major fashion celebration is to celebrate the “ultimate symbol of Japan” in a show tracing the connections between Alexander McQueen, Yves Saint Laurent, Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, Bjork and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

V&A Dundee is playing host to Europe’s first major exhibition devoted to the kimono, which will bring together almost 300 outfits, paintings, prints, films and accessories dating as far back as the 17th century.

The new show, which has followed previous exhibitions devoted to the evolution of tartan and the impact of fashion designer Mary Quant, will explore the global influence of the kimono on fashion and popular culture.

It is the first major exhibition drawn from Japanese culture to be staged at V&A Dundee since the striking waterfront building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma opened nearly six years ago.

Highlights of the show, which had its original London run curtailed by the Covid pandemic, include a kimono created by the late fashion designer L’Wren Scott and donated to the V&A by Mick Jagger, her former partner, and a kimono worn by the iconic Queen frontman Freddie Mercury at home.

The exhibition, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk, explores how the look of Obi-Wan Kenobi, the Jedi Knight in the Star Wars movies, was influenced by the look of Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune in the 1962 Samurai movie Sanjuro.

It recalls Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk’s kimono-inspired album cover Homogenic, how the Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto inspired the look of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust costumes and how the kimono was adopted by Boy George.

The exhibition also looks at how the kimono was used to depict Japanese characters and culture in stage productions in Britain and America, including The Geisha, The Mikado and Madame Butterfly. Japanese fashion designers featured in the exhibition, which opens on Saturday and runs until January 5, include Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto and Rei Kawakubo.

First exported to Europe in the mid-17th century, the kimono's influence on the global fashion industry is highlighted through designers including Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Paul Poiret, Mariano Fortuny, Yves Saint Laurent and Madeleine Vionnet.

V&A Dundee curator Kirsty Hassard said V&A was the “perfect venue” for the exhibition to end its extensive international tour due to the building’s connections with Japan.

She said: “Bringing together this amazing exhibition about an icon of Japanese fashion with Kengo Kuma’s amazing building, with all of its Scottish influences, is a bit of dream. I think there is maybe a misconception of the kimono being a very static and unchanging form of dress or costume.

"But what the exhibition shows is that the kimono has been a dynamic and constantly changing garment, which has had a massive global impact. The designers we have represented have made the kimono relevant to contemporary audiences, not just within a Japanese context, but globally as well, to constantly reinvent what it is and what it can be.”

V&A Dundee director Leonie Bell said: “The original exhibition had to be curtailed after a run of just a few weeks in London in 2020. It really demonstrates the depth and richness of the V&A’s extraordinary Japanese and Asian collections.

"We were really interested in bringing it to Dundee, not just because it is an incredible demonstration of fashion, textile and decorative art from Japan, but because of the very special additional lawyer of context to bringing it into Kengo Kuma-designed building, and the many connections between Scotland and Japan. It really made sense.”