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Episode 7: Fashion Exhibitions to see in London
120 Plays11 months ago
Vyki and Catherine are back to share their six favourite fashion exhibitions on in London. Fabulous frocks but what does the V&A have to say about Chanel’s war years? Handsome handbags at Gucci Cosmos but is the set design the star of the show? Just how did the Design Museum manage to make a room full of mannequins feel like a real live fashion show? Find out how M&S, David Bowie and Princess Diana all have connections to Jewish fashion designers. Discover how street style and haute couture are influenced by Black British designers and does gold make you beautiful?
Mentioned in this Episode:
· Gabrielle Chanel. Fashion Manifesto at the V&A
· REBEL: 30 Years of London Fashion at the Design Museum
· Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style at the Museum of London Docklands
· The Missing Thread: Untold Stories of Black British Fashion at Somerset House
· The Cult of Beauty at the Wellcome Collection
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● Positive Hip-Hop by MaxKoMusic from Chosic
Resources
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm Catherine from Cultural Wednesday and I'm Vicky from Museum Mum. Together we are co-hosts on this friendly insider guide to the best exhibitions, museums and historic places to visit in London and beyond. Between us we visit hundreds of cultural places a year. We're here to share what we've seen so you know what's worth the travel. Get ready to fuel your curiosity and wonderlust with The Exhibitionists. This
Lumiere Light Festival in Durham
00:00:30
Speaker
week fashion shows in London.
00:00:33
Speaker
But first, Catherine, how are you? I'm fine. I've been all over the place. I've rushed up to Durham to see Lumiere this week, which happens once every two years, that the buildings of inside and out of Durham are lit up. And also this year, Bishop Auckland. Absolutely amazing. Book your tickets for, not book your tickets because it's free, but arranged to visit Durham in 2025.
00:00:58
Speaker
I saw your stories and your posts and I was so envious. I really, really want to see it. It just looks incredible. It's absolutely incredible. We need to make a date.
00:01:09
Speaker
I'm probably three. It's looking free at the moment, Catherine. OK,
Christmas Activities: Ice Skating & Light Trails
00:01:16
Speaker
and how are you? I'm good, Catherine. We're starting to tick into Christmas mode. So we've had some lovely outings with the family. Me and Museum Girl went to ice skating at Somerset House, skate at Somerset House. Oh, very nice. Which always, always feels so festive. And this week we went to the light trail at Kew Gardens, which was just stunning.
00:01:38
Speaker
So I'm already feeling next time you'll probably see me in a Christmas jumper. Excellent. Twin hearings? Do you have twin hearings? I think it's just going to get more and more festive from here on but yeah so I'm feeling good. Excellent. So shall we start? Which exhibition do you want to start with? Well
Chanel Exhibition at V&A
00:01:57
Speaker
I thought I'd start with the big fashion show that everybody's been talking about, the absolute blockbuster
00:02:02
Speaker
which is Chanel at the V&A. Chanel is amazing, it's absolutely incredible but could you get tickets? Well we talked about it in our last episode, it was a complete sellout once it opened and so at the moment you cannot buy tickets, you can however buy membership and we talk about that more on our previous episode about museum memberships and that will get you in straight away so there'll be no wait. There's also what I'm going to say is
00:02:28
Speaker
In the past, V&A has on seller exhibitions started to open late and even 24 hours near the very end of the run. So I would say make sure you subscribe to their newsletter, keep an eye on their websites and socials and be prepared to click the button if and when that happens again. Yes, because it will be a stampede when it happens. Absolutely. But yeah, let's talk about the show because we've both seen it.
Chanel's Fashion Innovations
00:02:51
Speaker
And obviously the V&A, they set the standard for fashion exhibitions.
00:02:56
Speaker
they've just had so many good ones in the past. This one, I think I talked about at the time, I was a little bit reluctant to see it because of my personal viewpoints on Chanel. But I thought I would go see and make my mind up for myself how they dealt with it. And actually, I thought they dealt with it very well. So we'll get on to that point, because I think most people will be going there, will be going there for the fantastic fashion. And that's really what it celebrates is 70 years, really, of this woman's
00:03:21
Speaker
work and just how incredibly stylish and trend-setting these things were. And groundbreaking, because until then, women had been wearing corsets, quite structured clothes, and she freed everything up.
00:03:37
Speaker
Well, it's quite interesting because how much of that was her reflecting the times and how much of that was actually her changing fashion. And I think what she can definitely say that she changed fashion for was her use of silk jersey. So one of the first things that you walk in and you see is this really early, very rare shirt.
00:03:55
Speaker
that she's created or kind of top because it's meant to go with the skirt which is this kind of silk. And it is just absolutely stunning. It's kind of wrap and it goes out and it's very very simple but I think the idea was before then your jerseys, your silk jerseys, they were used for underwear and socks. The idea that you would go out wearing this very comfortable and what we now consider very elegant fabric was quite revolutionary and also her use of tweed as well because then that was very much a working fabric. It was very
00:04:21
Speaker
you know practical and and but again within the 20s and 30s she then elevated it to a fashion material. So it got a lot of stuff was taken from working people it's like the the stripey jumper that sort of I mean I would be I sit talking to you now in a blue and white stripey jumper.
00:04:40
Speaker
And very elegant, it is too, Catherine. I have many. Every time I come home with a new one, Mr. CW says, oh yes, it's subtly different to all the others.
00:04:54
Speaker
But coming back to Chanel, I mean, you could say that about, again, her black dress, I think, the little black dress is a Chanel thing. Before that black was something you'd only wear in morning, and you have a whole room dedicated to the sheer variety of black dresses that she created and how she really made them something even today is considered extremely elegant to wear. Although I no longer have a little black dress, I used to, but no longer.
00:05:19
Speaker
Do you have a little black dress? I've got several. Whether I fit in them is another story. But coming back to the exhibition, like I said, their shows are fantastic. They really do bring out the theatricality of clothing.
00:05:35
Speaker
I thought this one, the actual outfits were just incredible. The amount of detail, I think, again, it was getting close up to them and seeing these dresses from the 1920s and 30s, but then seeing how much, you know, there was kind of like pin tucks and all of this detail that you wouldn't see in a photo. And I was just blown away by those objects, particularly that period. I found that period they dealt with really well. And that was probably my favorite part of the exhibition. And I
Chanel's WWII Associations
00:06:01
Speaker
mean, her as a person,
00:06:04
Speaker
She's still quite a mystery, a bit of an enigma, I think, even with the exhibition. They gave you bits of her life, but they didn't really... It was more about the outfits, I'd say. Yes, given that it is the V&A and so therefore about creativity and objects,
00:06:18
Speaker
Maybe that's the right way. Maybe you need, I don't know, a portrait gallery. You could do a more in-depth about who she is and what she was. Yeah, but I think even with the V&A, when they did the Alexander McQueen exhibition, it was very much rooted in him and his life and the influences. And they brought that out with still creating these spectacular shows.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's that's true. But there are also there are many, many people alive now who can talk, talk to and talk about Alexander McQueen, whereas fewer people. Yeah, well, fewer. Maybe. Maybe that's why just the paucity of
00:06:55
Speaker
I think she wanted to remain that enigma. She did a lot of lies. There's a lot of mysteries. Maybe I'll move on to the point that I wanted to make. So part of the reason, like I said, was her connections, especially during the Second World War. She was listed as a Nazi sympathizer by the Third Reich.
00:07:13
Speaker
So that was part of the reason that I was just like, not sure I want to go. But actually, I thought they dealt with it really well. They showed what material evidence they had, some documents to show where she was, but also they showed new evidence, which was her listed as actually somebody that the French Resistance could go to as well, which I'd never heard of before.
00:07:33
Speaker
So I think it was very complicated. She was born essentially in a very humble background. She ended up getting brought up in an orphanage. And she went from this very humble background to basically dressing and, like you said, creating the standards for the international elite. And also living with them. And she had relationships with men at the very top of the social tree.
00:07:59
Speaker
the Duke of Westminster, for example, and even when he got married and they carried on their affair, there's the dress she made for his wife at the time. And her relationships during the war, there's letters to Winston Churchill because she had an ongoing friendship with Winston Churchill as well.
00:08:16
Speaker
I found that really, really interesting. Like I said, you can go in, you can just enjoy the dresses, but I particularly enjoyed the pre-war periods. I found the second, the post-war periods, kind of less interesting and less engaging, but obviously, again, beautiful outfits. And then they have that, at the end, they have this sweeping stairway with the kind of ball gowns and that sort of thing. But yeah, what were your takeaways? What did you enjoy most about it?
Chanel's Enduring Style
00:08:41
Speaker
What I enjoyed about the exhibition, it was learning about her and the new light that was shone on her goings on during the war. But what struck me most was the clothes. The fact that she was mould breaking and yet still 70 years on, those early clothes, I would wear them. I'd wear them now and I would not, you wouldn't look and point and go, oh, Catherine's wearing fancy dress.
00:09:10
Speaker
he'd look and say, Catherine's dressed elegantly today. And so the fact that that endures that they are simply elegant clothes and have sort of struck the line of what we still consider to be elegant, I think is amazing, an incredible legacy.
00:09:29
Speaker
Definitely. And it goes to show that she in some ways created style rather than, you know, she wasn't about fashion, she was about style and we still aspire to that level of elegance today. So if you can get tickets, if they do release them or if you do join, then it's definitely one to see and enjoy the dresses, enjoy the outfits, but also, you know, potentially learn more about this controversial and complicated character as well. And it's on until the 25th of February, if you are thinking of
00:10:00
Speaker
holding out for tickets or buying membership. I'm going to lead you onto another 100-year-old or 102-year-old brand.
Gucci Cosmos Exhibition
00:10:09
Speaker
This time it's Gucci Cosmos, which is on at 180 Studios. And Gucci Cosmos is a traveling exhibition. So it's been, I think it's been in Shanghai. I'm not sure where it's going next, but anyway, it's traveling the world. It is designed by Gucci. It's very, very much a Gucci thing.
00:10:29
Speaker
And so Gucci had bought in Es Devlin to design all the sets and Maria Luisa Friesa to curate the content. You are in a theatrical, theatrical world. Have you seen it? I have seen this. I took Museum Girl last week after we went ice skating. And it was a fun Friday night. Absolutely the thing to take anybody, actually.
00:10:58
Speaker
The audience when I went was far younger than the usual profile. I went on a sort of late afternoon when usually the profile is older, but I would say that most people there were in their 20s and 30s. Yeah.
00:11:19
Speaker
Definitely. What did you like about it, Catherine? I loved the theatricality. It starts off in a recreation of a lift because Gucci worked in the Savoy and was a lift boy in the Savoy and saw all the people's luggage. And so when he went back to Florence, he knew what the international elite wanted from their luggage. So that's sort of that conceit.
00:11:44
Speaker
you feel as if you're going up and then you get out and you've got to go down, you realise that you've just been sat in a room with a clever optical illusion. But then you go from room to room via twirling doors, what are they called? Rotating doors. And each set is different, but it's white until it's not white. You feel as if you are on a stage set. The level of detail is incredible.
00:12:10
Speaker
And just kind of the visual purity of it, like when it's white, it's really white. And then, you know, you go through these rooms and the last room is this incredible red space, which is just the intensity of this, of the red. So I think the design is standout. I know it's absolutely standard and plainly Gucci have, they've, they've given Esdevil in free range and the money to do it. It's absolutely expensively produced, but, but, but, but,
00:12:39
Speaker
I can't come away telling you about a single bag or dress, a scarf. There was a florally scarf that Grace Kelly had the first one, but one on display isn't Grace Kelly's. So there were, there are objects, there are items of fashion on display, but what I come away with is the impression of the sets.
00:13:04
Speaker
Yeah and that's I think that's very true. We can remember a little bit because the remember the blue room so you go into this it's meant to be like walking into an archive so you have boxes and drawers to look into. Yeah now I quite like to enjoy opening the drawers.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah and the mirrored ceiling and that was incredible and actually Museum Girl really got into opening the drawers and actually the silk scarves in there I really remember because she started looking for where they hidden the little Gucci logo and so we were looking at the designs and things like that but yeah it's definitely the set and there's always that question about exhibitions like when does the storytelling or the design overpower the objects
00:13:43
Speaker
For me, I feel that it's, well, first of all, it's a really enjoyable experience that will work for almost all ages. Violet had never heard of Gucci and she was walking around going, what is Gucci? And she was asking her, you can walk out still not knowing what Gucci is, to be honest. But like you said, I think it will appeal to a really wide range of people.
00:14:04
Speaker
And that's what I love about exhibitions and displays is that they do something different that you couldn't read in a book or you couldn't research yourself. You kind of experience it. I'm still very confused about what the Cosmos link is with Gucci. If you could explain that to me, please do. I don't know either, but I'm expecting Gucci Cosmos to be a perfume soon, if it's not already.
00:14:28
Speaker
It could be the most expensive perfume launch in history. Yes. But also possibly the most enjoyable. So I'm going to go back actually. I've already said Museum Dad's going to take some people from work. I'm going back with some colleagues because... You bought membership, didn't you? I bought membership, so I'm just popping in. I really enjoyed it as an exhibition. So if you're not like Vicky and you don't have membership, it's £18 to go and see.
00:14:57
Speaker
It's on until the 31st of December and book ahead. Yes, I didn't book ahead and there is no ticket office, so you're then tapping away on your phone and the signal inside 180 Studios is not great. Obviously, it can't get through the brutalist concrete. So yes, definitely, definitely book ahead, even if you're just sitting in a cafe around the corner.
00:15:20
Speaker
Top tip there.
Rebel Exhibition at Design Museum
00:15:22
Speaker
I was going to move on then to Rebel at the Design Museum, which is, it could sound quite geeky because it's about a specific scheme. It's about the British Fashion Council's New Generation scheme, which started in 1993 and it's a 30-year look.
00:15:36
Speaker
Actually, what it really is is a celebration of British fashion creativity over the period through this scheme. And I just found it really, like just really enjoyable again. It had like the energy that you'd want from a kind of like a London fashion show to came through an exhibition, which is really hard to do in a museum space. Yes, they had a sort of a central sort of
00:16:02
Speaker
catwalky bit. And even though they're mannequins, they're not moving anywhere, you actually really got a sense of the fact that you were at a fashion show. Yeah, absolutely. Because what they do is it's not a timeline, they've kind of focused it on kind of places, really. So they're looking at, well, why?
00:16:20
Speaker
London have been so great and pivotal for fashion. Basically, before the scheme it wasn't, it was a dire place. British fashion editors wouldn't really bother with it. But this scheme brought in the money and the support for people mentoring. So one of their first, for example, was Lee McQueen, Alexander McQueen. And what they do is they recreate his lost taxi driver collection. But it's looking at the influences. So there's him on the spending his doll money.
00:16:46
Speaker
he's living in the council flat and it's got all of the influences and they've kind of recreated what was this pivotal fashion moment that was lost.
00:16:54
Speaker
But it's kind of great because there are people who've broken through and become, you know, almost household names, but there's also people who are less, less known as well. So it's separating everyone's creativity rather than just focusing on a few. Yes, and it's also sort of wearing my sort of former business and economics producer's hat. It's really interesting to see how once
00:17:17
Speaker
Money, because the British Fashion Council ultimately is industry and money and people wanting to make money, swings behind the creativity. It's the real realisation that you need to grow the talent, you need to to feed and nurture the talent. And if you do that, you then have a wellspring of creativity coming through that can be turned, can be can be sold, can be monetised.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. And I think in terms of the names and what you'll see, there's Bjork's infamous swan dress, for example, came from one of the designers on that scheme. You've got the latex balloon outfit that was worn by Sam Smith, which is, considering it's not very old, already looks like it's deteriorating, so that was my inner conservator. The swan looked a bit sad as well, but I'd have liked to have seen the swan in its pomp.
00:18:11
Speaker
I think that's the thing, is that these are experimental, they're breakthrough, they're not meant to be pieces that are kept forever and last forever, and they're museum pieces. They're very much sort of creative moments, which have become really iconic. So yeah, what else did they have? They had like Molly Goddard, her kind of blue, electric blue. The net. The net, an incredibly tiered dress. And that was in the section where they're talking about art schools and how people learn. And then the support
00:18:39
Speaker
that they have from their tutors, and I think that would be great. If you've got a budding fashion designer in their sort of, you know, teens or later, I think this would be great for them because there's just so much about fashion making, I think. Yeah, no, absolutely. I thought that the room, the studio room, was amazing, sort of showing where the ideas come from and the experimentation, because you don't, Molly Goddard didn't come in to fashion school thinking, I'm going to do net, it's going to be amazing.
00:19:08
Speaker
developed over time, and then suddenly it was amazing. Yeah, I agree with you. I think that that showing of the creative process and the thought process is extraordinary. On another, if you, on the top floor of Alexander McQueen in Bond Street, they have an exhibition about the creation of his, of collections, and it's, oh, that's a real insight, that's a treat, and free.
00:19:36
Speaker
Oh, I have to see this one because I've heard a few people talk about it. Sorry, I've digressed there. No, digressions welcome here. Yeah. The bits I thought worked really well. Like you said, the fashion show, I thought that got across the energy. It had that industrial feel, that kind of pop up feel with the corrugated runway and also just the kind of diversity of
00:19:56
Speaker
kind of looks. So you had Sinead O'Dwyer who did, who celebrates different body shapes and things like that, that was coming through. So I really loved the energy of that. The queue, where you had the outrageous outfits, people, you know, like they were queuing for a club, again, was very, very fun. The bit I thought didn't work. I didn't think the club room worked at all. It was, it felt very flat. So you go into that dark space and there's like a club thing and some music. That just felt like a corridor to me.
00:20:21
Speaker
But also within that corridor wasn't, it was the getting ready where you could sit at mirrors and it would try on different outfits and put on different makeup. Yeah, the Snapchat filters. Yeah, they were really, they were fun. Yes, I did spend time playing with those. Yeah. There is one on my Instagram feed.
00:20:38
Speaker
Yeah, no, that that was definitely fun. And also the last room, which is almost like the hanging collections, you know, you've got, you know, you've had your inspiration, you've had your, you know, your clubs, you've had the getting ready, you've had your catwalk, and then they've got the last room is all of the hanging collections. That was really nice, because you could get really close and see them from all angles. And they were sort of suspended, they were behind glass, so you could get quite close to them.
00:21:01
Speaker
And again, it felt almost like a concept shop, which feels really fitting for that in a way that other museums who do fashion wouldn't do it in that way. So I really, really liked that. And also it showed some of the things about environmental concerns and how young fashion designers are trying to think about what they make and how that addresses that.
00:21:17
Speaker
So we've got a dear friend who works in fashion at that time as an editor and for her it was really nostalgic looking back and saying this really captured the time. So I think if you have any nostalgia for that period you'll love it. I don't but I still really enjoyed the exhibition. Yeah now I thought it was really good and almost exactly what the Design Museum needs or should be doing is doing. So that is at the Design Museum until the 11th February 2024
00:21:44
Speaker
And it costs £16.33. I think it's from, I think they do that whole dynamic pricing, so you might want to look around for the best deal for that. You do get half price with your art funds, am I correct? You do get half price with the art fund card, yes.
00:22:00
Speaker
Brilliant. OK, what did you want to talk about, Catherine? Which one should we do next? I want
Fashion City vs. Missing Thread
00:22:04
Speaker
to talk about two exhibitions next that are different but extremely similar. So they are, there's Fashion City at the Museum of London Docklands and Missing Thread, The Untold Stories of Black British Fashion at Somerset House.
00:22:22
Speaker
They tell stories of fashion city is of the Jewish community and their fashion and their impact on the fashion industry and missing thread is black British fashion and their impact on the fashion industry.
00:22:39
Speaker
And they are two very, very similar stories, but at slightly different stages in their trajectory, just given at the times of the waves of their respective migrations. Start off with Fashion City, which tells the story of the Jewish fashion history. And that sort of starts at about the sort of turn of the 19th to 20th century with a big
00:23:07
Speaker
wave of Jewish people coming in in the wake of the pogroms in Russia and then continued with the disruptions and pogroms and, oh, Nazi Germany-ishness of the first half of the 20th century. So you say you start in the East End in small tailor shops and small sort of, yeah, just small workshops making fashion. Individual stories are told as well as sort of individual stories
00:23:36
Speaker
tell the larger story. And you've got a mocked up tailor's shop. And then you walk through an underground tunnel and suddenly you're in the West End. So you're catching a tube, which is really, really clever. And then you are in London in the swinging 60s, 60s, when these small companies have become high street fashions, Marks and Spencers, Moss Bros, Chelsea Girl. Chelsea Girl's gone, but it was there in my youth.
00:24:06
Speaker
big, big in my youth. Just fascinating. Have you seen it? Yes, I have. Full disclosure, I work for Museum of London and so my colleagues curated that exhibition and I think it's fantastic. I think it does what the Museum of London tries to do, which is tell individual stories very, very well. So it's a fashion exhibition but it's not just about the fashion, it's also about the people who made it. And it's about London and it's about
00:24:32
Speaker
It's very much about spittlefields and how that area has just had. It changes all the time. It has historically been a very poor place, so therefore that's the place, if you're new, that's when you can afford to live realistically.
00:24:49
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I think the sense of space is conveyed so well. Like you said, you've got the kind of early pre-war period, and then the glamour, and also the 60s as well, like Mr Fish, the kind of the 60s boutique and the relationship to Carnaby Street. I want one of those sort of, Mr Fish made dresses for men, but they look more like frock coats, but I really, really want one of those frock coats. There's a picture of David Bowie wearing one. I think I'd look better.
00:25:19
Speaker
Well, there's only one way to find out, Catherine.
00:25:23
Speaker
But and also the kind of ongoing because they had Princess Diane's maternity coat as well, didn't they? They did, yes, which was made by Belleville's to soon, I think. And I think it's there's a lot of subtlety and nuance in there. And it's relevant, obviously, to the historic Jewish community. But also then there's the relationship that had with with the next wave of migrants. So you've got, for example, there's a Bangladeshi woman sewing machine there who did work for Jewish tailors. There's a black Caribbean.
00:25:53
Speaker
outfit there as well. So it's an experience that is universal or almost universal to a lot of people who come and settle here. Yes, so I'm now going to seamlessly move on to Missing Thread, which is the untold stories of Black British fashion, which is at Somerset House. And that is following the Black community coming in post-war Windrush, or post-Windrush.
00:26:22
Speaker
the use of the tailoring skills to a create clothes for themselves, and then moving into the wider market. It's not mass market as it's not Marks and Spencer's, because it's in a different trajectory. But just fascinating that you start off by going through sort of you go through sort of, it's like a house, but it's made of tape measures. So it's called fragile house by Harris Elliott. And it's there. So it's
00:26:52
Speaker
depicting the fragileness of the migrants' house in their new country, but also the materials which they have to use to make a new home and a new space. That sounds really impactful. It is. So it takes you from the sort of splendor of Somerset House, and then you are into the exhibition space.
00:27:20
Speaker
It does it really, really, really well. There are different rooms. So there's one room that is set up as a beauty parlor. So it's the nail art and it's the getting ready to go out. And then there's music, because a lot of the fashion is, I'm going to say hip-hop, but that's probably wrong and I'm probably offending lots of people. It's music driven.
00:27:48
Speaker
in a youthful manner in the clothes that just as I'm wearing a stretch jumper, I don't wear these things. I end up with a room of Joe Casely Hayford, so like a fashion show, but sort of greatest hits of his. And that is a room of clothes I absolutely would wear, want to wear. And also the Princess Diana appears as well because Bruce Oldfield dressed her. So there's a rather lovely red frock of hers.
00:28:18
Speaker
And so, because often I expect or find that Somerset House, it does a lot more on the artistic side when it does its interpretation, is how much of it is fashion and clothing and how much is other objects? Quite a lot of it is other objects, but they are fashion related. And so there is a row of shirts, tailored shirts, hanging up on a wall and they're very beautiful, but it's an installation. So Wayne Pinnock was, he was a future fashion star
00:28:48
Speaker
in the 90s, but then took time away, took two decades away. And so he's made, he's designed, somebody else has made the clothes, but they are hung, they've been created as an installation. So they are clothes, but they're not clothes that you could ever go into shop and buy. Yeah, it's a mixture of the installation, of the deviliness of the Gucci and of the actual clothes.
00:29:14
Speaker
Sounds really interesting. This one I have to see. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it is because, say, the prices of both those. So Fashion City is on until the 14th of April, 2024, and costs £12 at £8 with an Art Fund card. And the missing thread is on until the 7th of January and is £12 or £9.50 with an Art Fund card.
00:29:38
Speaker
Oh, brilliant. Well, we only have one more show to talk about in this episode.
Cult of Beauty Exhibition
00:29:43
Speaker
And for this one, I was going to talk to you about Welcome Collection, and it's the Cult of Beauty exhibition. I love the Welcome Collection. Well, me too. Me too. I think what they do really well, and again, it's in show in this exhibition, is they bring together kind of global history, art, science together, and they always say something new and different, and I have a fresh perspective on a topic.
00:30:07
Speaker
Absolutely, I love the way, because I have a science degree and obviously I really like art, so I love the way that they always, always mash up art and science in a way that no other institution does so consistently.
00:30:22
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And so you will love this show. So there's over 200 objects and artworks. And there's actually just so much to think about in there. And they really draw the parallels. So for example, one of the things they look at is gold, the idea of alchemy and whether that can bring you eternal beauty. So then they have this
00:30:44
Speaker
17th century copy of a medieval scroll that they've unrolled for you to look at, whereas, you know, the kind of alchemy meets science meets Boiler Frog and you'll become this. And that's stunning. But then they've also got then a print of the Diana Poitiers who notoriously drank gold because she thought that that would keep her youthful and didn't quite so much really, did it?
00:31:09
Speaker
No, apparently they have analysed I think her hair and it helped kill her. But then they've got a modern day gold serum for your face. So you're going through the centuries and just seeing how these ideas can keep reappearing.
00:31:25
Speaker
I mean, it's very complicated. There's a lot of ideas, for example, that they look at skin lightning. So they talk about how, even predating Western colonialism, they have a book from the 1590s, which is a Chinese
00:31:41
Speaker
book for recipe for pearl powder to whiten your skin. Obviously, they also look at that today and how that continues in certain cultures today. Huge proportions of people still use it. So there's a lot of difficult ideas. They look at plastic surgery for cosmetic changes. And it's the whole idea of what is beautiful. It's ultimately asking the question of do we all need to conform to the same thing?
00:32:10
Speaker
But how the same thing has changed. One of the first things you see is the Black Madonna, this amazing painting and how she was revered. But obviously, you know, in more recent times, especially since colonialism, the idea that, you know, a black woman was the ultimate beauty has been sort of torn down. It usually looks white and Jesus is usually white in the in the National Gallery and other galleries, other galleries are available.
00:32:37
Speaker
But yeah, so I think, I think so. It shows like how things change, but also that how things can start as medical and turn to beauty. So I don't know if you remember, there was that white LED mask, which I've seen advertised, you know, you can have and it's.
00:32:52
Speaker
I don't know, meant to just make you look youthful or whatever, but actually it comes from a treatment for NASA to promote wound healing. And so they've got this like 1950s version of this mask, which looks like a horror implement, and then today's beauty. And that's the same with a number of things that were, like I said, created for scientific purposes, but then crossed over into the beauty world.
00:33:14
Speaker
Yes, I could say what struck me most was the foundation, the colours of foundation. My youth, they just used to be about two or three colours and they all looked because I think one of the reasons why I wear very, very little makeup is because the foundation just always looked wrong. It didn't look like me. And now there's a whole pantone and you can buy foundation in
00:33:42
Speaker
not a rainbow of colours, but a spectrum of colours that actually reflects who we all are.
00:33:49
Speaker
And that's Rihanna's range as well. So you've got this, I mean, that's the thing, for a person of color trying to find foundation is particularly hard. So I thought, again, so it's very inclusive in that way and it's thinking about how things are changing. And the history bit, those explorations I absolutely loved. I really liked the corset bit as well. So you had this steel corset, which was for medical purposes.
00:34:16
Speaker
But then it goes to show again how that then became, you know, the idea of a beauty was how your waist was shaped. So then they have maternity courses, which I can't remember ever seeing before. It's quite an odd thing. I had a maternity course because I had a sympathist pubis dysfunction. And so that meant my hips, basically the elastin that you sort of, when you give birth, you sort of everything lets loose. Mine let loose a long time before. And so I had to be held together
00:34:46
Speaker
by an eternity corset. It was extremely glamorous. Okay, I'll give that the beauty thing. The bit I didn't think worked so well was the final section where they look at, they have three large installations looking at their beauty. I like the film, they've got a film called Permissible Beauty, which is about sort of black, queer,
00:35:09
Speaker
identity, British identity, and it's filmed in Hampton Court, and it's, you know, quite poetic. And that I really liked. But did you see the Narsister's installation? Yes, I did. Yeah. So for those who haven't seen it, it's this huge, possibly, I don't know, maybe three metres high or a bit taller, kind of waterfall almost of the artist's dead mother's possessions over this chair. And the idea is this weight of things.
00:35:37
Speaker
and it's a lot to do with her relationship with her mother, that sort of thing. I just didn't think it fitted the beauty at all. No, I was confused by that, to be honest. Yeah, you know, I can understand, oh, you know, death comes to us all and, you know, why are we thinking about beauty? But it just felt a bit shoehorned in, I felt. So the contemporary pieces didn't illuminate me as much on the idea as the historical.
00:36:02
Speaker
But it's a free show, it is fascinating and it's definitely worth going to see. And I think the Welcome Collection Cafe is really good and the shop is, if you're Christmas shopping at all, make sure you go to the Welcome Collection Shop, it's amazing.
00:36:18
Speaker
Excellent. Well, Cult of Beauty runs until the 20th of April. It's free, drop-in. Do bear in mind it gets very busy, especially on weekends. There's huge queues to get in. Yeah. I visited on a Sunday. I didn't have to queue to get in, but it was very full. Well, there we go, Catherine. I think we've covered all six fashion and beauty shows. I think so. I'm sure there are others, but hey, they're the six we've been to.
00:36:43
Speaker
Well, we hope you've enjoyed this episode of The Exhibitionists. If you've enjoyed the show, please hit the subscribe button and leave us a review. We've loved sharing our thoughts with you. Thank you so much for listening. You can find us on Instagram at The Exhibitionist Pod, or me, Vicky, at Museum Mum. Or me, Katherine, at Cultural Wednesday. Music is Positive Hip Hop by Maxco Music from Chuzik. Catch you the next time on The Exhibitionists. Until then, stay curious and enjoy those cultural adventures.