What’s on at the V&A in 2026
- maxwell museums
- Jan 22, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Dec 30, 2025
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 2026.
The museum's exhibitions you can visit right now — as well as the exciting upcoming blockbuster shows — are popular. In fact, the South Kensington-located venue offers some of the most eclectic subject ranges under one roof in the whole of London, so it always draws the crowds.
While recent years have sees a somewhat slimmed-down exhibition programme — recently in-part because of the Fashion Gallery is closed for a Burberry-funded refurb — there’s still a varied choice of topics to see.
With this guide being updated in December 2025 to cover the whole of what's been announced as coming in the next 12 months, here's the exhibitions you can see in 2026 at the V&A. (And the museum has already started the year with a bang, as its Director Tristram Hunt has been knighted by HM The King in the New Year honours.)
Quick links to the 2026 V&A exhibitions:
V&A museum exhibitions open now
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. Enthoven Unboxed: 100 Years of Collecting Performance explores an A-Z of themes which highlight how performance continues to entertain, provoke and inspire to this day. The most eye-catching star items 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, and a set model designed by Misty Buckley for Stormzy’s headline set at Glastonbury Festival in 2019. You can visit for free until 29 March 2026.
Design and Disability
This landmark exhibition spotlights how disabled, Deaf, and neurodiverse people and communities have always been important and radical contributors to design history and contemporary culture. Design and Disability covers a period of nearly 90 years — from the 1940s to now — and it features 170 objects across three sections spanning design, art, architecture, 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. Highlights include industry-leading commercial design such as the world’s first commercially-made adaptive Xbox controller by Microsoft, and DIY objects made in the home, plus zines produced by digital collectives. Running until 15 February 2026, the Guardian newspaper calls it "a world-shaping, boundary-breaking joy of a show."
Marie Antoinette Style
The truth about one of history's most infamous — and stylish — queens is unveiled in this hugely popular exhibition. Marie Antoinette might have been executed 230 years ago, but she continues to influence the worlds of fashion, photography and design to this day. In Marie Antoinette Style — open now until 22 March 2026 — 250 objects can be seen, including exceptional loans never displayed before outside Versailles and France. Highlights include rare personal items owned and worn by Marie Antoinette including the Queen’s own silk slippers, jewels from her private collection and the final note she wrote in her life. Visitors can also discover how Antoinette has influenced contemporary creatives including Sofia Coppola, Manolo Blahnik and Vivienne Westwood. The exhibition makes "for sumptuous viewing" according to the Telegraph newspaper.
Upcoming V&A exhibitions in 2026
The fashion giant Schiaparelli leads the exhibitions coming soon to the V&A in 2026, with a landmark contemporary art show following in the summer. It's expected that even more exhibitions due to open this year are still to be announced.
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Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art
This will be the first exhibition ever staged in the UK devoted to the Italian fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli. Running from 28 March until 08 November 2026, the exhibition will explore the first, groundbreaking designs by Schiaparelli, through to the major fashion house’s present-day incarnation in the hands of its creative director, Daniel Roseberry. Over 200 objects will be on show from a diverse range of mediums, including garments, accessories, jewellery, paintings, photographs, sculpture, furniture, perfumes and archive material. Art lovers will also enjoy Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art, as works by Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau and Man Ray will also be on display.
Rising Voices: Contemporary art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Work by 40 leading artists feature in this landmark collaboration between the V&A and the Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art (QAGOMA), in Brisbane, Australia. Drawing on more than 30 years of The Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT) exhibition series, the exhibition offers an unparalleled view of the region's dynamic creative landscape. Rising Voices: Contemporary art from Asia, Australia and the Pacific includes rare works by pioneering creatives, with some never before seen outside the region. There'll be a particular emphasis on First Nations perspectives and diverse artistic approaches. Opening 16 May 2026 (with no closing date yet revealed), the displays will feature weaving, ceramics, jewellery and miniature painting alongside global contemporary practices.
