Punk, Power, and Provocation: Vivienne Westwood vs Rei Kawakubo
There’s a fascinating conversation happening right now in the fashion world, and it’s unfolding inside a major new exhibition in Melbourne. The National Gallery of Victoria has brought together two of the most disruptive designers of the last half-century—Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo—and asked a simple but loaded question: who is more punk?
The exhibition, titled Westwood | Kawakubo , places these two fashion giants side by side for the first time. Both women were born just a year apart, Westwood in England and Kawakubo in Japan, and both reshaped fashion during the same era. But instead of walking visitors through their lives chronologically, the show is organized thematically. This allows their ideas to collide and overlap, creating a kind of visual and philosophical Venn diagram that highlights both their shared radicalism and their striking differences.
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What becomes clear very quickly is that both designers challenged everything fashion was supposed to be. Beauty, gender, taste, form, and even the purpose of clothing itself were questioned again and again. Westwood’s work is deeply rooted in history—corsets, tailoring, British heritage—and then aggressively twisted into something rebellious and new. Punk, for her, was worn loudly. It was political, confrontational, and often performed on the runway with music, attitude, and spectacle. Her voice was always part of the work, and her beliefs were never hidden.
Kawakubo, on the other hand, takes a completely different approach. She avoids the spotlight and lets her designs speak in silence. Her philosophy is about starting from zero, unlearning the rules of clothing altogether. Some of her garments defy easy description, so much so that even experienced museum curators struggled to categorize them. When her pieces arrive, familiar references disappear. Dresses don’t behave like dresses, and bodies aren’t shaped in expected ways. That refusal to explain or soften the work is, in its own way, deeply punk.
Despite these differences, surprising overlaps emerge. Both designers are self-taught, which allowed a rare freedom to experiment without permission. Both value independence over popularity and have maintained uncompromising control over their creative worlds. They even collaborated once, back in 2002, long before fashion collaborations became routine, signaling mutual respect between two very different minds.
As the exhibition moves through decades of work, the influence of both women becomes impossible to ignore. Corsets as eveningwear, underwear as outerwear, gender-fluid runways, sneakers alongside couture—these ideas now feel normal, but they were once shocking. They changed how people dress every day.
So who is more punk? The answer isn’t simple. Westwood may forever wear the crown of punk’s public face, especially because of her explosive 1970s legacy. But across an entire career defined by radical non-conformity and creative fearlessness, the argument quietly leans toward Kawakubo. In the end, the exhibition suggests that punk isn’t a look—it’s a mindset. And both women embodied it in their own unforgettable ways.
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