Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World at the National Portrait Gallery

Few names sit so comfortably at the intersection of fashion, art, and society as Cecil Beaton. This autumn, the National Portrait Gallery will open Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World — the first major exhibition dedicated exclusively to his work in fashion photography. Running from 9 October 2025 to 11 January 2026, the show promises an intimate look at the creative force who helped define twentieth-century style through his lens.

Beaton’s impact on fashion photography is difficult to overstate. His images didn’t just capture clothes; they shaped an entire era’s idea of glamour. From the poised elegance of Queen Elizabeth II to the modern magnetism of Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn, Beaton’s portraits transformed his subjects into icons. His distinctive blend of Edwardian theatricality and modernist clarity reimagined what fashion photography could be — at once staged and spontaneous, fantastical yet grounded in character.

Curated by Vogue contributing editor Robin Muir, the exhibition will feature around 250 works, including photographs, sketches, letters, and costumes. It traces Beaton’s career from his early experiments with a box camera as a boy to his ascension as “the King of Vogue.” His photographs for the magazine, particularly during the interwar years, redefined sophistication for the modern reader. At the same time, his lens immortalised the Bright Young Things of 1920s London — a generation for whom Beaton became both chronicler and participant.

But Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World is about more than glamour. It also charts Beaton’s evolution as a documentarian of changing times. His royal portraits of the late 1930s helped reinvent the monarchy’s public image, while his later wartime photography for the Ministry of Information revealed an artist capable of finding poise amid chaos. In the post-war decades, Beaton turned his gaze back to fashion, capturing the optimism of the 1950s in bold, painterly colour and designing the now-legendary costumes for My Fair Lady.

Almost entirely self-taught, Beaton brought a designer’s eye and a dramatist’s sensibility to photography. His work blurred the line between art and fashion, style and substance. In doing so, he set a template that continues to shape the way men’s and women’s style are seen — not just in magazines, but in the wider cultural imagination.

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World opens at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 9 October 2025 to 11 January 2026.