While I may be mostly stuck in the middle of Canada, I do like to stay on top of upcoming exhibitions around the world. (I keep hoping that someone will sponsor my travel, or at least share their photos…) And I have to say, 2025 does appear to have some interesting exhibitions on the horizon (with more to be announced, I’m sure). Today I’m sharing my highlights for 2025 Museum Exhibitions, from different countries, museums/galleries, and topics. If there are any exhibitions that you are looking forward to this year, please let me know in the comments! (And feel free to send me an email if you are planning to visit any of these!)
My To-See 2025 Museum Exhibitions
I’ve included a link to each exhibition’s specific site- I would recommend checking there to see exhibition dates, ticket prices and availability, hours, and accessibility. You will also find the exhibition’s description included! (I didn’t want to paraphrase and potentially miss key info.) The photos aren’t from the exhibitions (as none have opened yet ha) but from some of my own favourite past exhibitions!
Museum at FIT: “Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosity” (Opens 19 February 2025)
Fashioning Wonder: A Cabinet of Curiosities is an inventive exhibition that provides the first in-depth exploration of the fascinating connections between cabinets of curiosities and fashion. Also known as wunderkammern in German, cabinets of curiosities can be traced back to the early 16th century. They were precursors to the modern museum, and many included examples of clothing. The exhibition features nearly 200 garments and accessories, almost exclusively selected from MFIT’s permanent collection, which are inspired by the breadth of objects collected within the cabinets. The objects on view, many of which are shown for the first time, are meant to pique curiosity through their rarity, beauty, or originality.
Historic Royal Palaces (Kensington Palace): “Dress Codes (Opens 13 March 2025)
Explore the codes and conventions of royal clothing, and the powerful impact fashion can make when boundaries are pushed and dress codes evolve.
Among the highlights of this exciting new exhibition are pieces worn by a young Queen Elizabeth II, Diana, Princess of Wales, Dame Vivienne Westwood, Princess Margaret and Queen Victoria.
This exciting new exhibition showcases both recognisable and rarely-seen treasures from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, a collection of 10,000 objects spanning 500 years, cared for by Historic Royal Palaces.
Stunning items from the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection on display in 2025 include an extremely rare Japanese court suit dating from the early 20th century, and a never-before-seen 1920s Reville court dress worn to Buckingham Palace.
Royal Collection Trust (The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace): “The Edwardians: Age of Excellence” (Opens 10 April 2025)
Explore the opulence and glamour of the Edwardian age – the period between the Victorian era and the First World War.
Visitors will learn about the lives and tastes of two of Britain’s most fashionable royal couples – King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary – from their family lives and personal collecting to their glittering social circles and spectacular royal events.
More than 300 objects from the Royal Collection will be on display – almost half for the first time – including works by the most renowned contemporary artists of the period, including Carl Fabergé, Frederic Leighton, Edward Burne-Jones, Laurits Tuxen, John Singer Sargent and William Morris.
V&A: “Cartier” (Opens 12 April 2025)
A major exhibition featuring more than 350 objects, including precious jewels, historic gemstones, iconic watches and clocks, that chart the evolution of Cartier’s legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the 20th century.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art: “Sargent and Paris” (Opens 27 April 2025)
Sargent and Paris explores the early career of American painter John Singer Sargent (1856–1925), from his arrival in Paris in 1874 as a precocious 18-year-old art student through the mid-1880s, when his infamous portrait Madame X was a scandalous success at the Paris Salon. Over the course of one extraordinary decade, Sargent achieved recognition by creating boldly ambitious portraits and figure paintings that pushed the boundaries of conventionality.
… This exhibition gathers Sargent’s diverse works from this period to illuminate his path to becoming an artist, which was indelibly shaped by his experiences in the French capital. These visually stunning works provide a compelling view of the Paris art world of the late 19th century.
Royal Ontario Museum” “Saints, Sinners, Lovers, and Fools: 300 Years of Flemish Masterpieces” (Opens 28 June 2025)
The Southern Netherlands — better known today as Flanders — was home to revolutionary artists such as Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Hans Memling, and others. These extraordinary painters found new ways to depict reality, portray humanity, and tell stories that created parallels to their world then – and to our world today.
This large-scale exhibition, featuring over 80 stunning art works and objects — medieval, Renaissance, and baroque paintings, sculptures and more — offers a doorway into the Southern Netherlands of 1400 to 1700, a dynamic environment where new artistic genres and styles were created and flourished. The exhibition’s unique presentation introduces the visitor, through these rare, extraordinary artworks, to stories of enterprising townspeople, prosperous cities, and an ever-developing society.
National Portrait Gallery: “Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World” (Opens 9 October 2025)
Renowned as a fashion illustrator, Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist and writer, Cecil Beaton – ‘The King of Vogue’ – was an extraordinary force in the 20th-century British and American creative scenes. Elevating fashion and portrait photography into an art form, his era-defining photographs captured beauty, glamour, and star power in the interwar and early post-war eras.
No previous exhibition has exclusively spotlighted his ground-breaking fashion work, a pivotal aspect of his career that laid the foundation for his later successes. With this in mind, Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World will showcase Beaton at his most triumphant – from the Jazz Age and the Bright Young Things, to the high fashion brilliance of the fifties and the glittering, Oscar-winning success of My Fair Lady. In between, he endured the hardship of war as a photographer of the home front and of the Western Desert campaign and further beyond. From 1939 as a royal photographer, by appointment to the House of Windsor, he propelled the monarchy into the modern age.
What are your to-see 2025 museum exhibitions?
Cheers,
The Historian
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