Vivienne Westwood retrospective in Macau as sole Southern China stop

[Photos: Nadia Shaw]

Review

After stops in Shanghai and Chengdu, the “Vivienne Westwood & Jewellery” exhibition, created by Vivienne Westwood Ltd in partnership with Nomad Exhibitions, opened to the public in Macau on Wednesday, April 29.

Running through July 15, the Macau showcase marks the retrospective’s first and only appearance in southern China.

Through immersive soundscapes, catwalk footage, and graphic wall collages, the exhibit weaves a dialogue between adornment and apparel, offering an intimate look at the late designer’s subversive world. It features, for the first time, more than 600 archival and runway jewelry pieces alongside select garments and accessories from the acclaimed British fashion house.

From market stall to global influence

While Vivienne Westwood is a household name for her revolutionary clothing, her career began with the only formal training she ever pursued: jewelry and silversmithing.

At age 17, Westwood enrolled at Harrow Art School for silversmithing after her family moved to London. However, she left the program after a single term, doubting that the art world could sustain a “working-class” woman.

Westwood then trained at a teacher training college and secured a post as a primary school teacher in Harlesden.

Despite leaving art school, her creative output never stalled. During her time as a teacher, Westwood maintained her craft by designing and selling jewelry from a stall at London’s Portobello Road Market on weekends.

This personal history now anchors the exhibition’s layout across eight themed rooms, tracing the late designer’s evolution from a modest market stall to the world’s most prestigious runways.

Fine craftsmanship in ‘costume’ form

Despite being labeled “costume jewelry,” the pieces on display showcase fine craftsmanship –hand-strung pearls, intricate soldering, and complex stone settings.

Collection highlights span the house’s punk origins and ecological “Do It Yourself” activism to opulent 18th-century parure homages. A central focus remains the iconic Orb emblem, which was introduced as a pendant for the Autumn/Winter 1987 Harris Tweed collection.

The Vivienne Westwood orb combines the Sovereign’s Orb with the rings of Saturn, and remains a hallmark of the house. “The Orb logo itself is a jewel, symbolizing the world with its past, its present, and, through adding the Saturn ring, its future,” said Andreas Kronthaler, Westwood’s longtime creative director and husband. “It’s very British and very Vivienne.”

[Photo: Nadia Shaw]

At the exhibit, Alanna Davidson, partnerships director at Nomad Exhibitions, told the Times that jewelry served as a mutual language for Westwood and Kronthaler. “Interestingly, her long-term collaborator of over 30 years, her husband, when he grew up in Austria and moved to France, he also studied goldsmithing as a youngster,” Davidson said.

“The two of them […] had their origins in jewelry making, and jewelry for them is always an important part of every outing, but also a means to express yourself […] to have a bit of individuality and also humor and fun, and it’s often seen as a talking point as well.”

The engineering of a sustainable tour

Long before sustainability became a corporate trend, Westwood would contemplate the lifecycle of objects. She repurposed everyday items – safety pins, house keys, and found trinkets – into high-fashion statements when “upcycling” was far from mainstream. Davidson told the Times that to facilitate the global journey of the “Vivienne Westwood & Jewellery” exhibition, Nomad Exhibitions engineered bespoke, sustainable infrastructure for the project.

[Photo: Nadia Shaw]

“The custom cases for the jewelry [exhibition] are reminiscent of workbenches […] they can be packed into themselves […] this helps with packing down, setting up, and moving between venues,” she explained.

Their touring exhibition ethos minimizes environmental impact through modular components and carefully selected materials that enable a zero-waste, zero-landfill policy across its tours.

According to Nomad Exhibitions, unlike typical exhibitions, their displays pack into smaller volumes and lighter weights. The company also reduces climate impact by prioritizing road, rail, and sea transport over airfreight.

The Macau exhibition venue at the Grand Lisboa Palace is open daily from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., with last admission at 7 p.m. While admission is free, visitors must make advance reservations via the official website. Guided tours are also available upon inquiry. By Nadia Shaw