Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World (9 October 2025 - 11 January 2026) at the National Portrait Gallery will be the first major exhibition to spotlight the renowned twentieth century photographer’s trailblazing fashion photography, the core of his illustrious career which laid the foundation for his later successes. Often highlighted, but rarely examined in detail, the exhibition – curated by Vogue contributing editor Robin Muir will explore Beaton’s contribution to fashion, charting his meteoric rise and distinguished legacy. The exhibition will celebrate how his signature artistic style, a marriage of Edwardian stage glamour and the elegance of a new age, revitalised and revolutionised fashion photography and led him to the pinnacles of creative achievement. 

Renowned as a photographer, Beaton was also a fashion illustrator, Oscar-winning costume designer, social caricaturist and perceptive writer. ‘The King of Vogue’ – was an extraordinary force in the twentieth century British and American creative scenes. Elevating fashion and portrait photography to an art form, his era-defining photographs captured the beauty, glamour and star power in the interwar and early post-war eras.

With around 250 items displayed, including photographs, letters, sketches and costumes, the exhibition will showcase Beaton at his most triumphant. from London in the 1920s and 30s, the Jazz Age and the Bright Young Things, to the high fashion brilliance of the fifties. In between, he endured the hardship of war as a photographer of the home front and of the Western Desert campaign and further beyond. From 1939 as a royal photographer, by appointment to the House of Windsor, he propelled the monarchy into the modern age. The exhibition will end with what many consider his greatest triumph and by which he is likely best known: the costumes and sets for the musical My Fair Lady, on stage and later, on screen.

Tickets - £23 / 25.50 with donation - Free for Members

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