LONDON.- The V&A shared details of sites and exhibitions opening as part of its upcoming programme for 2025.
From 31 May 2025, go behind the scenes at V&A East Storehouse, a new working store and free visitor attraction, which opens to everyone as part of East Bank, the new cultural quarter in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. A world-first in size, scale and ambition, and new source of inspiration for all, V&A East Storehouse will immerse visitors in over half a million works spanning every creative discipline, from Biba and Balenciaga to the Ballets Russes and the Sex Pistols to Samurai swords. A new seven-day-a-week service, Order an Object, will make it easy for everyone to access all objects onsite at a time that suits them.
Through an extensive self-guided experience, visitors will encounter experiential installations and over 100 small, curated displays ‘hacked’ into the collection stores, alongside an ever-changing programme of live events and creative workshops and activities, as well as spaces to relax and socialise.
On 13 September 2025, V&A East Storehouse will open The David Bowie Centre, the new home of David Bowie’s Archive, recently acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group.
At V&A South Kensington, in April the V&A will stage the UK’s first major exhibition in almost 30 years dedicated to the creations of Cartier, exploring how the Maison became an unparalleled force in the jewellery and watch world. In June, Design and Disability will centre disability as a culture and an identity through its engagement with design, art, architecture, fashion, and photography from the 1940s to now. September will see the V&A host the UK’s first ever exhibition on Marie Antoinette, exploring the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history.
The 2025 programme at V&A South Kensington will also feature a host of displays, festivals, workshops, events and talks – including the museum’s V&A Academy and Membership scheme – complementing the V&A’s seven-miles of free galleries and world-leading collections.
At Young V&A Making Egypt will take visitors on a fascinating journey through the ancient past to modern day, exploring ancient Egypt’s creativity and how it continues to influence art, design and popular culture.
V&A Dundee’s 2025 programme will include A Fragile Correspondence opening this November which will take visitors on a journey through three Scottish landscapes across the Highlands, Islands and Lowlands mapping a collection of ideas by architects, artists and writers. In May, Garden Futures: Designing with Nature will explore garden ideals from across the globe and how they have influenced the way we design and inhabit gardens today.
V&A South Kensington 2025 Programme Highlights
Cartier
12 April 2025 – 16 November 2025
The V&A will stage the UK’s first major exhibition in almost 30 years dedicated to the creations of Cartier, exploring how the Maison became an unparalleled force in the jewellery and watch world. Featuring more than 350 objects, it will chart the evolution of the house’s legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the 20th century, when the three grandsons of founder Louis-François set out to create the first globally recognised jewellery house, establishing branches in Paris, London and New York. With an enviable client list of royalty and aristocracy from all over the world, Cartier was ‘the jeweller of kings and king of jewellers’ and later broadened its appeal thanks to the devotion of eminent creatives from the worlds of cinema, music and fashion. The exhibition will include precious jewels and showstopping objects, historic gemstones, iconic watches and clocks from the V&A and Cartier Collection as well as previously unseen drawings from the V&A and Cartier archives, together with works lent by His Majesty The King from the Royal Collection, major UK and international museums, and private collections.
Design and Disability
7 June 2025 – 15 February 2026
Design and Disability will centre disability as a culture and an identity through its engagement with design, art, architecture, fashion, and photography from the 1940s to now. Both a celebration and a call to action, the exhibition will show where and how disabled, Deaf, and neurodiverse people and communities have always been important and radical contributors to design history and contemporary culture. It will show how disabled people have designed everyday objects through their own experience and expertise and trace the political and social history of design and disability. Through examples of disability-first practices showcasing the work of disabled people and their collaborators, the exhibition will demonstrate how design can be made more equitable and accessible and aim towards design justice.
Marie Antoinette Style
Sponsored by Manolo Blahnik
20 September 2025 – 22 March 2026
In September, the V&A will host the UK’s first ever exhibition on Marie Antoinette, exploring the origins and countless revivals of the style shaped by the most fashionable queen in history. A fashion icon in her own time, the dress and interiors modelled and adopted by the ill-fated Queen of France in the final decades of the eighteenth century have had a lasting influence on over 250 years of design, fashion, film and decorative arts. Through a wide range of objects and media, from couturier’s gowns to audio visual installations, the exhibition will explore how and why Marie Antoinette has provided a constant source of inspiration and consider afresh the legacy of a complex figure whose style, youth and notoriety have all contributed to her timeless appeal.
Young V&A 2025 Programme Highlight
Making Egypt
15 February 2025 – 2 November 2025
Young V&A’s second family-focused exhibition will take young visitors on a fascinating journey through the ancient past to modern day, exploring ancient Egypt’s creativity and how it continues to influence art, design and popular culture. Told across three sections exploring themes of Storytelling, Communicating and Making, with gods guiding each step of the way, Making Egypt will journey through the Nile, inviting young visitors to uncover ancient Egypt’s myths and gods and the landscape that inspired them. Visitors will try their hand at deciphering hieroglyphs, discover meaning and messages communicated through colour, plus explore hands-on the making of objects that populated ancient Egypt. Making Egypt will feature ancient artefacts, many on display for the first time, contemporary fashion, jewellery, comics, film, games, sculpture, ceramics and more from across V&A’s collection and beyond.
V&A Wedgwood Collection Programme Highlights
Wedgwood and Darwin
Opens 24 February - June 2025
This display will explore the story of Josiah Wedgwood’s grandson, Charles Darwin and how the family link inspired Wedgwood ceramics creative output. 35 historic objects from the collection alongside the acquisitions from Wedgwood’s new range inspired by Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.
The display will form part of an ambitious new public events programme for 2025, marking 10 years since the Wedgwood Collection was saved for the nation following a successful fundraising campaign spearheaded by Art Fund and gifted to the V&A. Housed alongside the working Wedgwood factory at World of Wedgwood in Stoke-on-Trent, the collection celebrates the legacy of British potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood (1730–1795) and forms a unique record of over 260 years of British ceramic production, evolving tastes, changing fashions and manufacturing innovation.
V&A Dundee 2025 Programme Highlights
A Fragile Correspondence
Opens 22 November 2024
From the forests around Loch Ness, to the seashore of the Orkney archipelago and the industrialised remnants of the Ravenscraig steelworks, A Fragile Correspondence is a journey through three Scottish landscapes across the Highlands, Islands and Lowlands mapping a collection of creative responses by architects, artists and writers. It explores the complex relationship between land, architecture and the language we use, seeking new ways of working in connection with the land rather than simply upon it. Responding to the theme Laboratory of the Future, this project was selected to represent Scotland at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2023, an international exhibition inviting participants to engage with ideas for the environments we live in. Commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership and curated by a creative team consisting of the Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine, and /other, this will be the first opportunity to see A Fragile Correspondence in Scotland.
Garden Futures: Designing with Nature
Opens 17 May 2025
Garden Futures: Designing with Nature will explore garden ideals from across the globe and how they have influenced the way we design and inhabit gardens today. Highlighting key moments of innovation in garden design and gardening practice from the twentieth century to present day, the exhibition will look at some of the world’s most pioneering gardens, alongside the work of international artists, designers and landscape architects who think of gardens as places to test ideas to make a better world. This major exhibition will bring together an extraordinary array of objects by artists and designers influenced by the enduring allure of gardens including ceramics, fashion, painting, textiles, sculpture, interior design, drawings and photographs, including Eelco Hooftman, Jamaica Kincaid, Cedric Morris and Piet Oudolf. It will also look ahead, exploring the latest gardening practices and imaginative projects which in times of climate crisis, globalisation and food insecurity offer a fascinating insight into the power of gardens and how our outdoor spaces can help achieve a better future. An exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum, the Wüstenrot Foundation, and the Nieuwe Instituut.
