Martin Grant

This major exhibition staged at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia surveys the work of Australian-born Paris-based fashion designer Martin Grant. Drawn from the NGV collection of works, including many donated by the designer from his own personal archive, the exhibition encompasses more than four decades of Grant’s career with designs spanning from the mid-1980s in Melbourne, through early 1990s when he re-established his eponymous label in Paris, to his most recent collections. Conceived in close collaboration with the designer, the show reflects Grant’s design sensibility and aesthetic through fashion, photography, sketches, press clippings and runway footage.

Throughout his illustrious career, Martin Grant’s clients have included his muses Cate Blanchett and Lee Radziwill, as well as Naomi Campbell, Juliette Binoche, Rebel Wilson, and Lady Gaga. A leading figure of the global fashion industry, Martin Grant is known for his reinterpretation of wardrobe classics, cleverly recalibrating historical silhouettes and period references to create timeless and sophisticated designs that exemplify his refined understanding of structure and volume. With an emphasis on form, each garment is constructed to maintain a direct relationship to the body as a sculptural form. This concerted restraint is underpinned by beautiful detailing and immaculate finishing, each the result of a deep appreciation of the traditional techniques that sit at the heart of bespoke tailoring and couture practices.

This exhibition offers an unprecedented insight into Martin Grant’s creative process and milieu, showcasing a design vocabulary where form, comfort and function are intertwined with enduring elegance.