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The day Vivienne Westwood turned the corset into a work of art
For her Fall/Winter 1990 collection, British designer Vivienne Westwood printed a painting by François Boucher onto corsets, elevating this piece of lingerie to the status of fine art. A creation now on view at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs (MAD), as part of the exhibition “Rococo & Co. From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman,” running until May 18, 2025.
by Léa Zetlaoui.
Vivienne Westwood: a punk vision of fashion
It’s March 1990. In the aftermath of Black Monday in 1987, the eccentric sophistication of the 1980s embodied by Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, and Gianni and Donatella Versace began to fade. In its place arises a darker, more minimalist fashion driven by Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and of course, Martin Margiela, the master of anti-fashion.
Amid these established designers and emerging talents, one British creator remains defiantly true to herself. In her collections, Vivienne Westwood revives the history of costume and upholds the traditions of tailoring. But that’s not all, she also welcomes punk, trash, and fetishism into her creative universe.
From the very start, Vivienne Westwood has rejected the establishment and its conventions. So, while restraint reigns on the runways, she goes against the grain. Her Fall/Winter 1990 show stands as a vibrant love letter to the Rococo movement.
A corset in tribute to François Boucher
It was at the Wallace Collection, a London museum renowned for its holdings from this period, that Westwood found inspiration. Amid the works of Fragonard, portraits of Madame de Pompadour, and opulent furnishings, she was captivated by the paintings of François Boucher. The French master of ornamental style held a special fascination for the punk designer.
Many pieces from the Fall/Winter 1990 collection, pearl necklaces, brightly colored petticoats resembling crinolines, long coats, and fingerless gloves, draw directly from Boucher’s canvases.
“I felt something was missing: in a way, the paintings themselves,” Westwood explains in a video. “I chose the painter who most epitomizes the decorative movement, Boucher, and his most typical painting, The Sleeping Shepherdess.” Vivienne Westwood explains in a video.
And so, she chose to print that painting onto a series of corsets. The idyllic setting and heightened sensuality of the scene are intensified by the inherently erotic nature of the corset, a signature of Westwood’s style since 1987.
In fact, the house dedicated an entire exhibition to the corset in 2023 at its Rue Saint-Honoré boutique. Its curator, Alexander Fury, art historian, journalist, and collector, discussed three exceptional creations in an interview for Numéro.
The Vivienne Westwood corset at the MAD
Bold for its time, Vivienne Westwood’s “Portrait” Fall/Winter 1990 collection has gone down in fashion history. So much so that at the start of the decade, these corsets—worn by the likes of FKA Twigs and Bella Hadid—were fetching sky-high prices in vintage boutiques and online.
And while the brand reissued them in 2020, along with a capsule collection inspired by the originals, the corset has now been consecrated as a work of art in its own right.
It’s at the MAD that it receives this recognition, within the exhibition Rococo & Co. From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman. Here, the Vivienne Westwood corset adorned with Boucher’s Daphnis and Chloe embodies the enduring influence of Rococo style across eras and disciplines.
“Rococo & Co. From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman” runs until May 18, 2025, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. More information at madparis.fr.
