Why fashion capitals like Milan and Paris can only envy Dundee

London, New York, Paris, Dundee. The runway leads lead to the city on the Tay from this weekend with the arrival of the V&A’s new exhibition, Catwalk: The Art of The Fashion Show.

Fashion capitals can only look on in envy at Dundee whose design museum is the location of the exhibition’s only UK showing, as it celebrates 125 years of the phenomenon of the fashion show.

I’ll be among the first to admire examples from fashion houses such as Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Maison Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Mary Quant, Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Charles Jeffrey – all of them inspired in some way by Scotland’s landscapes, textiles and creative talent.

McQueen and Westwood have always been true to tartan, Coco Chanel had a literal love affair here, discovering a passion for tweed and knitwear that outlasted her affection for the Duke of Westminster, and as recently as 2024 Dior chose Drummond Castle in Perthshire to champion Scottish artisans and influences in its Dior 2025 Cruise collection.

READ MORE: The big story of the Little Black Dress

The V&A’s new exhibition, Catwalk: The Art of The Fashion Show, will put Dundee on the map for fashionistas across the world | Grant Anderson

Poise, passion and panache

One of the models walking in the Dior show was Lucia Fairfull, frontwoman of Glasgow indie rock band Lucia and the Best Boys, who is also an ambassador for Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show, along with Scottish designer Charles Jeffrey.

With a creative career that straddles fashion and music, she has the poise, passion and panache to front Catwalk’s publicity campaign and rocks a series of outfits from Mugler to McQueen.

Her favourite, from a roll call of fashion favourites, is a 1980s Westwood dress in orange, blue, white and yellow print, topped with a shiny black pirate-esque hat. For her, Westwood was “fearless”, “fun”, “empowering”, “unique”.

“It’s really important as a creative to follow your gut and your heart and Vivienne Westwood never stopped doing that. So there was something about getting to wear that which felt momentous and full circle for me,” she says as the show launches.

READ MORE: Dame Vivienne Westwood: How the ‘visionary’ designer put the punk into Scotland’s textile industry

Robots and puppets

The immersive exhibition mixes film, photography, original garments, objects and archival material, highlighting the madness and imagination of memorable runway moments such as the spray-painting robots that decorated Shalom Harlow’s outfit in the finale of Alexander McQueen's No 13 collection for spring/summer 1999.

Ever innovative and always adaptable, the catwalk’s creatives have changed and coped with the times. Witness images of Jeanne Lanvin dressing dolls for fashion shows when textiles were scarce in a war-shattered Europe of 1945, foreshadowing the Covid pandemic when fashion houses such as Moschino and Dior used puppets and miniature mannequins instead of humans on the runway to get round social distancing and travel bans.

And it’s not just about the designers, because Catwalk celebrates everyone who has a hand in a show, the photographers, set designers, make-up artists, models and audience too, from the FROW down to those of us who can only drool and dream then snap up the high-street version as it filters down, an Argyle sweater here, boucle jacket there. Or head up to Dundee and see fashion in the flesh.

I predict Catwalk will be a runway success.

Tickets for Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show, 3 April to January 2027, are available from the V&A Dundee website