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The day Vivienne Westwood turned corsets into works 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.
Published on 2 May 2025. Updated on 23 April 2026.
Vivienne Westwood’s punk vision of fashion
Throwback to March 1990. In the aftermath of Black Monday in 1987, the eccentric sophistication of the 1980s embodied by Jean Paul Gaultier, Thierry Mugler, or Gianni and Donatella Versace began to give way to a darker, more minimalist fashion. Masters of anti-fashion, like Helmut Lang, Jil Sander, Rei Kawakubo, Yohji Yamamoto, and, of course, Martin Margiela, gained prominence.
Among these established designers and emerging talents, one British designer remains unapologetically true to herself. Vivienne Westwood revamps historical costumes and extends traditional tailoring through her bold collections. In addition to that, she welcomes punk, trash, and fetishism into her creative universe.
From the very start, Vivienne Westwood has rejected the establishment and its conventions. When restraint dominated the runways, she delivered wild silhouettes. For instance, her Fall/Winter 1990 show was a vibrant love letter to the Rococo movement.
A corset paying tribute to François Boucher
It was at the Wallace Collection in London that Vivienne Westwood found inspiration. From Fragonard‘s paintings to portraits of Madame de Pompadour and opulent furnishings, the British designer was captivated by 18th-century artworks. François Boucher, the French master of ornamental style, held a rare fascination for the punk designer.
Many pieces from the Fall/Winter 1990 collection, such as pearl necklaces, vivid, crinoline-like petticoats, long coats, or fingerless gloves, were a clear reference to Boucher’s canvases. “I felt something was missing. In a way, the paintings themselves. I chose the painter who most epitomizes the decorative movement, Boucher, and his most typical painting, The Sleeping Shepherdess,” Vivienne Westwood explains.
Thus, 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 garment, a signature of the Westwood style since 1987. The house dedicated an entire exhibition to corsets in 2023 in its store on Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Its curator, art historian, journalist, and collector Alexander Fury, discussed three exceptional creations in an interview for Numéro.
The Vivienne Westwood corset at the MAD
Bold for its time, the Fall/Winter 1990 “Portrait” collection has gone down in fashion history. So much so that these corsets — now worn by singer FKA Twigs and model Bella Hadid — are fetching sky-high prices in vintage boutiques and online.
Although Vivienne Westwood reissued some pieces, along with a capsule collection inspired by the originals in 2020, the corset has now become a work of art in its own right.
At the MAD, the garment received the recognition it deserved in 2025 through the exhibition Rococo & Co. From Nicolas Pineau to Cindy Sherman. There, Vivienne Westwood‘s corsets, adorned with Boucher’s Daphnis and Chloe, symbolized the enduring influence of Rococo style across time and artistic fields.
