LONDON.- The Design Museum today reveals its full exhibition programme for 2025, with visitors invited to journey from the dancefloor of 1980s London to the Grand Budapest Hotel.

The unique cinematic vision of Wes Anderson will be examined in a first-of-its kind exhibition made in collaboration with the celebrated American filmmaker.

Forty years after its closure, visitors can return to London’s trailblazing Blitz club, where the 1980s began and where the careers of the decade’s biggest music stars were made.

Our century-long love affair with swimming will be explored in a major show spotlighting design’s influence on everything from swimwear to art deco architecture.

And a groundbreaking exhibition will bring together art, science and radical thinking to ask how design can help our planet thrive by shifting its focus beyond human needs.

Tim Marlow, Director and Chief Executive of the Design Museum said: “Our 2025 exhibition programme is excitingly eclectic, exploring aspects of music, fashion, film and sport through the lens of design, as well as radical ideas shaping the future of our planet. It reinforces both the importance and all-pervasive nature of design, touching every aspect of life. From the beautiful worlds crafted by the great Wes Anderson to a vision of how we might co-exist with our planet more effectively, we look forward to making a big splash for all our visitors next year.”

Major Exhibitions

Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style
28 March — 17 August 2025

Celebrating our enduring love of water, this exhibition will dive into design’s role in shaping our relationship with swimming over the past 100 years — both in the water and beside it.

From the 1920s, swimwear was marketed for swimming rather than bathing as fitness became fashionable. Groundbreaking women set a number of records in the water, and a beach holiday was all the rage, evident in the lidos built across Britain’s towns and coastlines.

This exhibition will chart the century that followed, right up to the role of swimming in modern life and how it has influenced and subverted our ideas of autonomy and agency, and sport and style. Visitors will discover the full spectrum of the design of swimming — from sports performance to fashion and architecture.

Splash! is guest-curated by Amber Butchart, a dress and design historian and broadcaster known for her history segments on BBC One’s The Great British Sewing Bee.

More Than Human
06 June — 05 October 2025

Why has design traditionally only focused on the needs of humans, when we exist alongside billions of animals, plants and other living beings? This groundbreaking exhibition offers a new perspective, one that will be crucial to enabling the planet to thrive.

Bringing together a new generation of international designers whose practices embrace the idea that human activities can only flourish alongside other species and systems, this will be the first ever major exhibition on a growing movement of ‘more-than-human’ design. It is created in collaboration with Future Observatory, the Design Museum’s national research programme for the green transition and a partnership with the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Featuring art, design, architecture and technology, this thought-provoking show will present visitors with radical ideas on how to design with — and better understand — the living world.

Blitz: the club that shaped the 80s
19 September 2025 — 29 March 2026

Behind a door in a Covent Garden side street, the Blitz club was the place where 1980s style began. Inspired by everything from David Bowie and the punk and soul scenes, to continental cinema and cabaret culture, the brightest young talents of their generation came together to revolutionise fashion, music and design, turning a niche club night into a launchpad for global superstardom.

This exhibition will be a sensory extravaganza of music, flamboyant fashions, and pioneering art, film and graphic design. It’ll be an opportunity to revisit London’s clubland at the beginning of the decade, as the furious idealism of the 1970s gave way to the glossy individualism of the 1980s.

Developed in close collaboration with some of the leading ‘Blitz Kids’ who were there, it will feature garments, drawings, photographs and film from the Blitz club and beyond. Most items will have never been on public display before.

Wes Anderson
21 November 2025 — 04 May 2026

Exhibition produced by the Design Museum London in collaboration with la Cinémathèque française and in partnership with Wes Anderson and American Empirical Pictures

The first retrospective exhibition of the work of film director Wes Anderson will follow the evolution of his films from his first experiments in the 1990s, right up to his most recent, Oscar-winning frescoes.

Each Wes Anderson picture plunges the viewer into a world with its own codes, motifs, references, and sumptuous and instantly recognisable sets and costumes. This exhibition will be the first time museum visitors have the opportunity to delve into the art of his complete filmography, examining his inspirations, homages, and the meticulous craftsmanship that define his work.

From the melancholic charm of The Royal Tenenbaums to the youthful adventure of Moonrise Kingdom, discover how Anderson's unique vision and dedication to detail have created some of the most visually and emotionally compelling films of recent times.

Through a curated collection of original props, costumes, and behind-the-scenes insights, including from his personal collection, this exhibition offers an unprecedented look into the world of Wes Anderson, celebrating his enduring influence on contemporary cinema.

Free Displays

PLATFORM: Bethan Laura Wood
14 February 2025 — January 2026

PLATFORM is a new initiative at the Design Museum to expand our exhibition and displays programme with free, annual displays showcasing the work of a designer or studio who are making an impact on contemporary design discourse. The inaugural PLATFORM display presents the work of Bethan Laura Wood.

Wood is a multi-disciplinary designer, whose work is characterised by material investigation, artisan collaboration and a passion for colour, detail and decoration. She is fascinated by the connections we make with the everyday objects that surround us and, as a collector herself, likes to explore what drives people to hold onto one particular object while discarding another. Visitors will see the full spectrum of Wood’s work, from furniture, ceramics, textiles and lighting.

The Ralph Saltzman Prize 2025
June 2025

Returning to the Design Museum for its fourth year, The Ralph Saltzman Prize celebrates emerging product designers, in recognition of Ralph Saltzman’s design legacy.

Created by Lisa Saltzman on behalf of the Saltzman Family Foundation, the Prize reflects the Design Museum’s overarching commitment to champion new talent and nurture the development of a vibrant design sector. Each year, a panel of design luminaries select the brightest emerging designers currently making waves in the field of product design. The winner, selected for their innovative approach to contemporary themes, receives an honorarium — doubled in 2025 to £10,000 — and has their work displayed in the Design Museum.

Furniture designer Mac Collins was selected as the inaugural winner in 2022, with Marco Campardo as the second recipient in 2023. Attua Aparicio was awarded this year’s prize.

Design Ventura 2024/25
April 2025

Design Ventura is an annual design and enterprise competition for schools, run by the Design Museum in partnership with and Deutsche Bank’s youth engagement programme which aims to unlock the potential of the next generation by aiming to increase achievement, develop employability skills and raise aspirations.

Now entering its fifteenth year, the competition sees schools compete to have their product idea manufactured and sold in the Design Museum Shop. Since 2010 over 160,000 students have participated in the project.

The 2024/25 competition brief has been set by Notpla, an Earthshot Prize-winning firm who design and produce regenerative packaging materials, made from seaweed and plants. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony at the Design Museum, and the two-month display of shortlisted and winning entries will follow. Design Ventura is delivered in partnership with Deutsche Bank.

Design Researchers in Residence: Artificial
June — September 2025

Design Researchers in Residence was established to support emerging design thinkers whose research responds to the climate emergency, building upon the museum’s Designers in Residence programme that ran from 2007 to 2020. The residency forms part of the Design Museum’s Future Observatory, delivered in partnership with the UKRI Arts and Humanities Research Council.

The 2024/5 residents will respond to the theme of artificial, and will examine the limits of human-centric design in a more-than-human world. Projects on display will confront, blur, contest and dismantle the boundaries between what is natural and what is unnatural.

The programme will culminate in a publication and free public display at the museum in June 2025, through which visitors will learn about a range of impactful new thinking that centres design in the green transition.