What’s on at the V&A in 2025
- maxwell museums
- Jan 22, 2024
- 5 min read
Updated: Apr 16
It's the world's leading museum of art, design and performance. So it's no wonder you want to find out what's on at the V&A in 2025.
The museum's shows you can visit right now — as well as the exciting upcoming exhibitions — are blockbuster. In fact, the South Kensington-located venue offers some of the most eclectic subject ranges under one roof in the whole of London.
While recent years now see a somewhat slimmed-down exhibition programme — that's now partly because the Fashion Gallery is closed for a Burberry-funded refurb — there’s still a varied choice of topics. The next 12 months sees displays on supermodels, super jewels, and a superstar queen from history.
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So here's what's to expect from the V&A's exhibitions in 2025.
Victoria and Albert Museum exhibitions open now
The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence
The monumental artistic achievements of the ‘Golden Age’ of the Mughal court are spotlighted in this landmark exhibition.
The Great Mughals celebrates the extraordinary creative output and internationalist culture of Mughal Hindustan during the age of its greatest emperors, from around 1560 until 1660. It shines a light on one of the wealthiest courts in the world, and tells the story of an immense early modern empire that is largely unknown within the UK.
Across three sections, the show spans the reigns of Emperors Akbar (r.1556-1605) Jahangir (r.1605-1627) and Shah Jahan (r.1628-1658), with a particular focus on the craftsmanship, arts and creative outputs of the courts.
Over 200 objects are on display, including rarely shown paintings, illustrated manuscripts, brilliantly coloured carpets, and delicate textiles, as well as architectural pieces and vessels made of mother of pearl, rock crystal and jade, and precious metals. The exhibition shows both famous and little-seen objects from the V&A's own collection, as well as loans from museums across the world.
Highlights for visitors to look forward to include four rare folios from the colourfully illustrated volumes of the Hamza Nama, or 'Book of Hamza', commissioned by Akbar in 1570, on loan from the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, and the ‘Ames Carpet’ (c. 1590–1600), a woven carpet from the imperial workshops, on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and on display in the UK for the first time. The Great Mughals runs until 05 May 2025
Cartier
There's jaw-dropping bling throughout this huge exhibition dedicated to one of the most famous jewellery houses in the world.
Visitors can get up close to over 350 exquisite pieces in this much-anticipated Cartier exhibition, including rare jewellery and watches. It's the UK’s first major exhibition dedicated to Cartier jewels in three decades.
Through three sections, the show charts the evolution of the jewellery house’s legacy of art, design and craftsmanship since the turn of the 20th century. It reveals how Cartier became known as "the jeweller of kings and the king of jewellers" through its enviable client list of royalty and aristocracy.
Highlights include a brooch commissioned by HM Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 featuring the rare 23.6 carat pink Williamson diamond, Grace Kelly’s engagement ring from 1956, and the spectacular and opulent Manchester Tiara. It's from the V&A collection and was made in 1903 for the Dowager Duchess of Manchester — it features over a thousand brilliant-cut diamonds and more than 400 rose-cut diamonds.
Alongside the precious stones are previously unseen drawings from the V&A and Cartier archives, together with major works lent by His Majesty The King from the Royal Collection, major UK and international museums, and private collections. Cartier runs until 16 November 2025
Enthoven Unboxed: 100 Years of Collecting Performance
In 1924, the V&A accepted a donation of over 80,000 playbills, programmes, and ephemera from collector, humanitarian, and campaigner Gabrielle Enthoven. And so it's world-renowned performing arts collection was born. This (free) show celebrates its growth over the past century.
The display explores an A-Z of themes which show how performance continues to entertain, provoke and inspire to this day. Through a selection of objects ranging from Enthoven’s early theatrical material to the V&A’s most recent performance acquisitions, it presents a remarkable history of performance.
The most eye-catching highlights include: The original Rolling Stones tongue and lips artwork by graphic designer John Pasche; a costume worn by Dua Lipa in the Future Nostalgia tour; a costume worn by Paul O’Grady’s Drag persona Lily Savage; and a set model designed by Misty Buckley for Stormzy’s headline set at Glastonbury Festival in 2019. Enthoven Unboxed is open now until 04 January 2026
V&A upcoming exhibitions in 2025
Design and Disability
This landmark exhibition will spotlight how disabled, Deaf, and neurodiverse people and communities have always been important and radical contributors to design history and contemporary culture.
It'll cover a period of nearly 90 years — from the 1940s to now — and will examine disability as a culture and an identity through its engagement with a wide range of disciplines: from design, art, and architecture, to fashion and photography.
Visitors will learn how disabled people have designed everyday objects through
their own experience and expertise, as well as the political and social history of disability in the design world.
At its heart will be a showcase of the work of disabled creators and their collaborators, and examples of disability-first practices will collectively demonstrate how design can be made
more equitable and accessible, and aim towards design justice. Design and Disability opens 07 June 2025 and runs until 15 February 2026
Marie Antoinette Style
The truth about one of history's most infamous — and stylish — queens will be unveiled at the V&A in the autumn.
Marie Antoinette might have been executed 230 years ago, but she continues to influence the worlds of fashion, photography and design to this day. So the curator of this show hopes to consider afresh her legacy, and to demonstrate how her style, youth and notoriety have all contributed to her timeless appeal.
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 came to be seen as both a complex figure, and the most fashionable queen in history.
Visitors should be prepared to have their assumptions challenged. “She is still seen as a byword for excess and frivolity" but it's just a "trope based on mythology that is trotted out repeatedly,” the curator has said when announcing this much-anticipated exhibition. Marie Antoinette Style opens 20 September 2025 and runs until 22 March 2026
If you like what's on at the V&A, you'll also love the Wallace Collection's 2025 exhibitions
