An announcement just in that we guess will interest rather a lot of you, here’s the press release headline “From guest-curated displays to unrealised projects, the V&A announces new details on the David Bowie Centre – opening at the V&A East Storehouse on 13th September 2025”

That’s Bowie’s Aladdin Sane jacket. Designed by Freddie Burretti for David Bowie in 1973. Image courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum

“Today, the V&A announces its David Bowie Centre, opening 13 September 2025 at V&A East Storehouse, will feature an exclusive guest-curated display by multiple award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie-collaborator, Nile Rodgers, and Brit Award-winning indie rock band, The Last Dinner Party. These intimate selections from Bowie’s archive offer new perspectives on one of the most iconic creatives of all time and sit alongside a series of other mini curated displays and installations exploring Bowie’s creative legacy and lasting influence”.

The headlines read “A new home for David Bowie’s archive – V&A East Storehouse’s David Bowie Centre – gets visitors closer to Bowie’s creative process and legacy than ever before. Nine displays include unrealised projects and newly uncovered revelations, plus, visitors can book one-on-one time with items from the archive. Award-winning musician, producer, songwriter and David Bowie collaborator Nile Rodgers and Brit Award-winning indie rock band The Last Dinner Party guest curate a display”, Not sure about the mega-hyped music industry pets Last Dinner Party curating, a band who seem to have been marketed at us and had everything handed to them of a plate from day one, yeah, I know, that cynical smile again, how dare we question anything! Got a serious volley of abuse yesterday for daring to question an art event, you’re not allowed to criticise or question anything these days, just cut and paste the press release and tell everyone how wonderful everything is.  You do have to question the credibility of that decision though don’t you? I mean The Last Dinner Party do rather seem like to be a music industry invention based around one chorus designed to look and sound slightly naughty for a fifteen second Warholian bite on TikTok and Instagram. hey, cynical smile aside, it is rather good to see the archive in existence and mostly together in one place…   

 “Access to the David Bowie Centre is free and ticketed, with tickets released later in the year. The David Bowie Centre Archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation, and Warner Music Group”

“Visitors to the David Bowie Centre, the new free-to-access working store and permanent home for David Bowie’s archive, can also book one-on-one time with their own selections from the 90,000+ items in his archive”, Wonder if he hung on the leaf he had? First time I met Bowie it was in a gallery in Chelsea, I was standing looking at a painting, I probably have mentioned this more than once, I was suddenly aware of a very very expensive smell next to me, and someone standing next to me silently looking at the same painting and shared nods of appreciation. Bowie smelt wonderful. Bumped into him several times at art galleries after that…

The David Bowie archive was acquired by the V&A through the generosity of the David Bowie Estate, the Blavatnik Family Foundation and Warner Music Group. It joins over 1,000 archives from creative luminaries including Vivien Leigh, the House of Worth, and The Glastonbury Festival Archive.

Nile Rodgers, who produced Bowie’s hugely successful single and 1983 album, Let’s Dance, as well as 1993’s Black Tie White Noise, has written, produced, and performed on records that have sold more than 750 million albums and 100 million singles worldwide. He has curated items reflecting what he calls his and Bowie’s shared ‘love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.’ His selections include  bespoke Peter Hall suit worn by Bowie during the Serious Moonlight tour for the Let’s Dance album, Chuck Pulin photographs of Bowie, Rodgers and guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Let’s Dance in New York, Personal correspondence between Bowie and Rodgers about the 1993 Black Tie White Noise album, Peter Gabriel images of the recording sessions with backing vocalists Fonzi Thorton, Tawatha Agee, Curtis King Jr, Denis Collins, Brenda White-King, Maryl Epps, Frank Simms, George Simms, David Spinner, Lamya Al-Mughiery and Connie Petruk recording Black Tie White Noise.

Nile Rodgers said: “My creative life with David Bowie provided the greatest success of his incredible career, but our friendship was just as rewarding. Our bond was built on a love of the music that had both made and saved our lives.”

The Last Dinner Party are a Brit award-winning band (and don’t we bloody well know it, wasn’t one of thier first ever gigs opening for the Rolling Stones!), whose electrifying performance style draws inspiration from their shared love for Bowie. They have selected objects mostly from the 1970s that illustrate how Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists to ‘stand up for themselves and their music’ and ‘steal and reinterpret’ to create something unique. Their selection includes Mick Rock photos showing Bowie in intimate recording studio moments, Bowie’s elaborate handwritten lyrics for ‘Win’ from the 1974 album Young Americans, writings and set lists for the Station to Station tour, aka Isolar – 1976 Tour, Bowie’s Electronic Music Studios (EMS) synthesiser user manual. The ‘suitcase synth’ was used on the albums Low, Heroes and Lodger, the so-called ‘Berlin’ trilogy

Georgia Davies, Lizzie Mayland, Abigail Morris, Aurora Nishevci and Emily Roberts of The Last Dinner Party, said: “David Bowie continues to inspire generations of artists like us to stand up for ourselves. Bowie is a constant source of inspiration to us. When we first started developing ideas for TLDP, we took a similar approach to Bowie developing his Station to Station album – we had a notebook and would write words we wanted to associate with the band. It was such a thrill to explore Bowie’s archive, and see first-hand the process that went into his world-building and how he created a sense of community and belonging for those that felt like outcasts or alienated – something that’s really important to us in our work too.”

CURATED DISPLAYS

The V&A East curatorial team consulted with 18–25-year-olds from the four Olympic Boroughs of Hackney, Newham, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest through London Legacy Development Corporation and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’s Elevate Youth Voice. The resulting displays delve into various elements of Bowie’s archive and creative legacy, encompassing everything from private photographs to handwritten lyrics, self-portraits, his own artist’s palette, sketches, costumes, and designs.

Nine rotating displays reveal aspects of Bowie’s extraordinary creative capacity, including ideas for projects that were never realised. Highlights include an idea to adapt George Orwell’s 1984 and unrealised Young Americans and Diamond Dogs films.

Other displays explore Bowie’s creation of his iconic personas including Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane and look at his embrace of technology, futurism and science fiction, plus his legendary 1987 Glass Spider tour and concert at the Berlin Wall. Others spotlight Bowie’s creative collaborators including Gail Ann Dorsey, and the creation of the 1975 Young Americans album, alongside his wide-spread creative influence and legacy.

Madeleine Haddon, Curator, V&A East said: “Bowie embodied a truly multi-disciplinary practice—musician, actor, writer, performer, and cultural icon—reflecting the way many young creatives today move fluidly across disciplines and reject singular definitions of identity or artistry. His fearless engagement with self-expression and performance has defined contemporary culture and resonates strongly with the values of authenticity, experimentation and freedom that we celebrate across the collections at V&A East Storehouse. This archive offers an extraordinary lens through which to examine broader questions of creativity, cultural change, and the social and historical moments during which Bowie lived and worked. In the Centre, we want you to get closer to Bowie, and his creative process than ever before. For Bowie fans and those coming to him for the first time, we hope the Centre can inspire the next generation of creatives.”

For more information on the David Bowie Centre go here

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THE DAVID BOWIE CENTRE

As well as a new visitor experience, first and foremost, the David Bowie Centre is a working archive and store for Bowie’s paper-based archive with reading and study rooms. The Centre is brought to life with a series of small, curated areas including a new film showcasing a selection of performances from across Bowie’s career, and an interactive installation tracing the wide-spread impact of Bowie on popular culture from the sit-com Friends to Issey Miyake fashion and musicians from Lady Gaga, CharliXCX, Janelle Monae, and Kendrick Lamar. A series of rotating mini displays exploring different themes and elements of the archive shows approximately 200 items at onetime. A central space for facilitated object handling and exploring facsimile topic boxes also includes overhead rails of hanging Tyvek bags storing some of Bowie’s most iconic fashion and costume. These range from Freddie Burretti’s Ziggy Stardust looks to Agnes b’s Heathen ensembles, and Bowie’s 1992 Thierry Mugler wedding suit. These costumes can be ordered for closer looking as part of one-on-one appointments by using the V&A’s Order an Object service.

The David Bowie Centre is part of V&A East Storehouse at East Bank in QueenElizabeth Olympic Park. Access to the David Bowie Centre is free and ticketed, with tickets released closer to opening.

ABOUT THE DAVID BOWIE ARCHIVE

The David Bowie archive encompasses 90,000+ items tracing Bowie’s creative processes as an innovator, cultural icon, and advocate for self-expression and reinvention. Items range from 414 costumes and accessories to a series of set models, nearly 150 musical instruments, amps, and other sound equipment, 187 awards, as well as life masks, framed art, merchandise including tour t-shirts, posters, Bowie’s own desk, props and scenery for concerts, film and theatre. Paper-based material includes notebooks, diaries, lyrics, scripts, correspondence, project files, writings, unrealised projects, cover artwork, designs, concept drawings, fan mail and art. Most of the paper-based material is made up of photographic prints, negatives and transparencies, numbering over 70,000 items.

Highlights include stage costumes such as Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane ensembles designed by Freddie Burretti and Kansai Yamamoto (1970s), lyrics for songs including Fame (1975), Heroes (1977) and Ashes to Ashes (1980), as well as examples of the ‘cut up’ method of writing introduced to Bowie by the writer WilliamBurroughs.

Cataloguing the David Bowie archive is ongoing and one of the largest V&A cataloguing projects to-date. The V&A aims to complete the cataloguing process by the end of 2026.

ONE-TO-ONE BOOKINGS

Bookings to see 3D items from the David Bowie archive, including costumes, musical instruments, models, props and scenery, can be made through the V&A’s new seven-day-a-week Order an Object service. Visitors can book up to five items per visit at a time that suits them. Bookings require at least two weeks’ notice and Bowie items will begin to go live for advance booking from September.

DESIGN APPROACH

The David Bowie Centre is designed by London and Paris-based design company, IDK, and celebrates the unique environment of V&A East Storehouse and the extraordinary character of David Bowie himself. Balancing storage with stagecraft, the Centre is a dynamic space to explore Bowie’s life, work and legacy offering a deeply personal insight into Bowie’s world.

Built using V&A East Storehouse’s existing utilitarian ‘kit of parts’ system, the Centre features a mix of permanent and rotating displays, a dedicated study room, and an object handling space. Open and inclusive, IDK’s design approach is inspired by Bowie’s own creative method of cutting up and rearranging ideas — bringing together different elements to form something new, surprising, and alive.

Once the Centre opens, paper-based items including sketches, designs, writings, lyrics, press cuttings, and photographic prints, negatives and transparencies can be consulted through scheduling advance appointments with the Archives team.

SUPPORTERS

V&A East Storehouse opened on 31 May 2025. It is supported by Garfield Weston Foundation, The Foyle Foundation, Frédéric Jousset, David and Molly Lowell Borthwick, the Wolfson Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, Clore Duffield Foundation and many other generous supporters. Meanwhile the glorious thing that was Hackney WickEd no longet happens amd the many art studios and space are replaced by tower blocks and homes unafordable to most…

ABOUT V&A EAST STOREHOUSE

• V&A East Storehouse immerses visitors in over half a million works spanning every creative discipline from fashion to theatre, streetwear to sculpture, design icons to pop pioneers. A busy and dynamic working museum store with an extensive self-guided experience, visitors can now go behind the scenes and getup-close to their national collections on a scale and in ways not possible before.
• Diller Scofidio + Renfro are lead architects for V&A East Storehouse, with support from local architects, Austin-Smith:Lord. IDK are the designers of TheDavid Bowie Centre. Fieldwork Facility are the way finding and interpretation designers. We Not I are the external signage designers.
• V&A East Storehouse is open 10:00-18:00, seven-days-a-week, with late night openings every Thursday and Saturday to 22:00. Late nights include access to the V&A’s revolutionary new Order an Object service, curated self-guided experience and displays, special events, and café, e5 Storehouse.
• Visitors can order objects stored at V&A East Storehouse at a time that suits them via the V&A’s Order an Object page.
• V&A East Storehouse is the first of V&A East’s two new cultural destinations to open in east London. The second, V&A East Museum, is scheduled to open in spring 2026, and celebrates making and creativity’s power to bring change.

ABOUT EAST BANK

East Bank is the UK’s newest cultural quarter at the heart of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, a place where once, before the destruction of the Olympics, artists had the freedom to create and make and exhibit and evolve, a Hackney Wick once alive with unpoliced feral creativity and DIY spirit, a place where those (often influenced by Bowie), designed and painted and made and created without all red tape and the expense and control that now exists as gentrification and corporate red tape kills almost everything….

For more information on the David Bowie Centre go here