Punk's DIY visual explosion, from ransom-note graphics to the New Romantics, becomes a V&A collection show under the title Punk to Pop.
The V&A shows the record sleeves, clothes and posters of British punk and its aftermath in Punk to Pop, opening at V&A South Kensington on Saturday 13 March 2027.
The exhibition covers British music and fashion from 1972 to 1985. A generation of artists with a punk DIY spirit responded to austerity and political turbulence, as new technology arrived and society grew more multicultural. Punk’s cut-up typography and safety-pinned clothing gave way to the New Romantics, the sleeve designers and the video directors.
The same small circle of people, mostly in London and Manchester, made both. Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren ran a shop. Jamie Reid made the ransom-note poster for the Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen”, and Peter Saville designed record covers now held in design collections.
The museum has always argued that fashion, graphics and manufacture are one subject. It already holds the Sex Pistols material, much of Westwood and the graphic archives, so this is largely a collection show.
It is the first of three exhibitions the museum has announced for 2027, ahead of Sculpture in Clay in May and Chintz in September.