Les mondes du luxe

From September 20, 2025, to March 22, 2026, London’s Victoria & Albert Museum is hosting an exhibition dedicated to Marie Antoinette, a fascinating figure known for her style and transgression. Ceremonial dresses, jewelry, personal archives, and contemporary echoes weave together a portrait of a woman who was both queen and muse, whose aesthetic continues to inspire fashion and luxury.

From September 30 to October 10, 2025, the Grand Palais will become the setting for a rare immersion into the world of Virgil Abloh, who passed away in 2021. More than just a designer, he was an icon who redefined the contours of luxury, merging street culture, industrial design, and haute couture. This unprecedented exhibition celebrates his disruptive codes—from Off-White tailoring to Louis Vuitton Men’s silhouettes—in a raw and conceptual scenography. The exhibition “Virgil Abloh: The Codes” is an ode to the creative intelligence of a visionary who made luxury a universal language.

In Rotterdam, the FENIX Museum of Migration is breathing new life into a former port warehouse with a futuristic architectural feature: a polished steel “Tornado” tower, traversed by a vertiginous spiral staircase. For its first museum project in Europe, Chinese studio MAD blends industrial memory and sculptural flight in a dialogue between human history and visual utopia. A luxury of contrasts, where migration becomes architecture and steel becomes narrative.

Opening in March 2026, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum will celebrate surrealist fashion icon Elsa Schiaparelli with Fashion Becomes Art, a groundbreaking retrospective featuring over 200 legendary pieces—sculptural dresses, bold jewelry, collaborations with Dalí and Picasso—that embody visionary luxury at the intersection of art and clothing.

Under the stars of Kyoto on June 18, OMEGA revealed its new secret: the Aqua Terra 30 mm. Through the “my little secret” campaign, six exceptional women embodied this collection, combining elegance and modernity. With 12 distinct references, each watch allowed every woman to express her unique personality. Vibrant dials, precious materials—18K Moonshine™ gold, 18K Sedna™ gold, stainless steel, and two-tone—this collection transcends time with boldness and refinement.

The very first Copenhagen Architecture Biennial (18 Sept. – 19 Oct. 2025) celebrates slowness as the new measure of luxury. Under the theme “Slow Down,” Denmark confirms its role as a global pioneer in sustainable design and sensitive urban planning. Regenerated materials, recycled pavilions, open and shared architecture: Danish avant-gardism is embodied in sober, poetic forms that are radically forward-looking. A discreet luxury, designed to last.

Under the majestic glass roof of the Grand Palais, Paris Photo reveals the richness of an art form where time stands still in images of timeless beauty. This 28th edition (November 13–16) will celebrate the diversity of perspectives—from recognized masters to emerging talents—that shape a form of photography as precious as it is ephemeral. Between heritage and modernity, each work tells a story of light and shadow, offering viewers a rare luxury: that of a moment suspended in time, vibrant with emotion and poetry.

Until November, the Guggenheim Bilbao is hosting the first major Spanish exhibition dedicated to Barbara Kruger, the American icon of feminist art and visual criticism. With her shocking posters, acid red typography, and ironic injunctions, her graphic language has become cult, attacking consumerism and stereotypes with the rigor of a luxury slogan turned on its head. In the museum’s monumental spaces, Kruger offers her unsettling perspective and thought-provoking art.

In Los Angeles, cultural luxury takes on a new suspended form: the David Geffen Galleries, designed by Peter Zumthor, Swiss master of constructed silence and contemporary sacred spaces. The building, a vast ribbon of golden concrete floating above Wilshire Boulevard, erases the museum hierarchy in favor of a continuous, almost meditative promenade. Here, art can be viewed without a set itinerary, bathed in natural light, in an architecture that rejects ostentation in favor of contemplation. It is a rare manifesto: that of discreet, fluid, essential luxury.

From June 24 to 27, during Paris Fashion Week, the Saudi Fashion Commission will showcase some of its 100 talents on the 5th floor of La Samaritaine. In an exclusive showroom, 11 pioneering designers and their spring-summer 2026 collections will be featured: 1886, Awaken, Eleven, Hajruss, Mirai, RBA, Razan Alazzouni, Rebirth, Reem Alkanhal, Waad Aloqaili, and Yasmina Q. A creative showcase open from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. (CEST).

This summer, Louis Vuitton is taking over the city of Osaka with two spectacular exhibitions, alongside Expo 2025. Until September 17, 2025, the brand is presenting its “Visionary Journeys” exhibition at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, designed by Florence Müller and Shohei Shigematsu from the architecture and urban planning firm OMA. From Kusama to Murakami, the history of iconic trunks dialogues with more than 200 Japanese artifacts, including impressive lantern trunks made of washi, a traditional Japanese paper handmade from natural fibers, which open the exhibition. Also in Osaka, artist Yayoi Kusama is being celebrated by the French brand, with whom she has been collaborating since 2012, in “Yayoi Kusama – Infinity.” On view until January 2026 at the Espace Louis Vuitton Osaka, the exhibition presents the artist’s iconic designs, almost always adorned with Kusama’s signature dots or pumpkins. Visitors can lose themselves in her “infinity rooms,” which reproduce hallucinatory patterns ad infinitum, inviting contemplation.

In the alpine village of Mulegns, Switzerland, the Gelateria designed by ETH Zurich and Origen blends innovation and ecology. Its vibrant dome, 3D-printed with recycled plastic, unfolds like a suspended work of art. Under a translucent membrane, the interior is adorned with flowing curves and shimmering colors, offering a unique sensory experience since May 2025. This project embodies a vision of sustainable luxury, where technology serves beauty and nature.

In the mountains of Yunnan, Kong Xiangwei’s Camellia Theater traces slender steel curves suspended between mist and light. More than just a theater, it is a showcase open to the landscape, where architecture fades away to make way for the poetry of the place. The theater will be inaugurated later this year.

From today, the city of Arles in France will be buzzing with the gaze of the world. For its 56th edition, the festival will resonate with memories, rebellion, and intimacy through the works of Nan Goldin, Berenice Abbott, Michael Cook, and others. Photography does not merely show: it questions and resists.

From June 12 to 15, 2025, Design Days will take over the industrial heart of Lausanne: the 1960s Rasude space for a plural and transdisciplinary exploration of design. Bold and sustainable creations—such as Cristina Nezel’s sculptural vases and Fabien Roy’s Swiss wood furniture—come together in a poetic reflection on the future of Swiss design.