A Beautiful Day at the V&A - Fashion Exhibit

I love the V&A. In my opinion it's the best place for research and also the perfect place to spend and entire day. I never feel like I've wasted my time going there, and I always see something new and different even though I've been there so much. I hope to have a look at some of the archive stuff to research for my Extended Major Project at the end of Level 6 Costume. I went to look at the new and improved fashion exhibit, with clothing on show from the mid-1700s onwards. The new pressure and humidity chambers mean that more delicate and intricate examples of historical clothing can be put on show, and the new exhibit is beautifully laid out. I was really impressed, although obviously it's the V&A; it was unlikely to be unimpressive! So here's a few photos I took with a few comments on the new exhibit and things that I took away from my day there...

 Incredible late 1700s silk gown with a surprisingly modern-looking gold thread pattern. The proportions on this dress were ridiculous. The tiny bodice with narrow sleeves and quite short  stature really contrast with the incredible width of the skirt

 Stays - 1780-90, English, linen with leather, silk and whalebone

Hat - 1760-70, English, straw with silk and bobbin lace

 The first area you come across is the 1700s, with an incredible selection of really really old clothing and accessories. I loved the hats and the shoes they had on display; the colours were gorgeous and the details so intricate. Everything is also really tiny and the mannequins quite short. An interesting comment made by an equestrian costumier I was talking to recently was that the people weren't all that short and tiny. The costumes that survive are short and tiny because the wider and taller costumes had a larger volume of fabric in them, and were probably remodelled into new clothes over a period of time until they were worn through! Two world wars has resulted in quite a few bodices and jackets surviving, but very few skirts, as these were a valuable source of fabric!

 A really nice comparison between the 1700s and 1800s can be made between the two ivory and gold dresses in both exhibits. It shows a massive progression in technique of cutting and use of fabric, but a similar love for glitz and colour. Gold was, is, and will continue to be, a powerful eye-catching detail to stylish and fashionable clothes.

Corset - about 1830, English, cotton with whalebone and cord; Chemise - 1835, English, linen trimmed with cotton; Drawers - 1834, English, cotton; Sleeve support - 1825-30, English, cotton stuffed with feathers

The early 1800s are, appropriately, separated from the late 1800s as they are so incredibly different, so the next section you come across is the early section. Some gorgeous examples of the extremes clothing reached in this early period, in particular some really impressive sleeve shapes and shoulder lines. In each section there is also an example of the undergarments of the time, which is really interesting to see as they define the silhouettes of the garments. The bottom image on the right is particularly significant in terms of undergarments as there is a sleeve pad on the right arm of the mannequin, which held out the voluminous sleeves of the era. Having the undergarments as part of every exhibit emphasises how important they are when looking at historical garments, and when reconstructing history.

The following section is the late 1800s, showing examples of enormous skirts and narrow waists. It's really nice to see items such as these that are so familiar from the V&A 'Fashion in Detail' books.

This 1908 pale rose pink linen gown is carefully detailed in the Janet Arnold 'Patterns of Fashion' books. It is, again, really interesting to see actual examples of the garments noted in the books I have studied. 

The early 1900s is nicely represented by some beautiful examples of soft tailoring and some lovely lacework. 

I am typically a lover of historical fashion pre-WW1, and I don't tend to look that carefully at the fashion exhibits post-WW1, but at the V&A all the examples of historical fashion are so beautiful and shown so well, I found myself spending an uncharacteristic amount of time in the '40s, '50s and '60s! The women's tailoring from the '40s was lovely to see, juxtaposed with cardboard boxes on string which would have had gas masks in, and hard leather accessories. I struggle matching checks, stripes and patterns in tailoring, and these examples were immaculately matched. Obviously I shouldn't have expected any less, as these were high class examples of '40s fashion, but it's still impressive to see. Also exhibited were the understructures of '50s dress alongside the coat and skirt it would have been worn with. Again the understructure in this era defined the shape, and it was interesting to see how much it had moved on since the earlier periods. The really striking thing about the '60s exhibition space was how contemporary everything looked. The patterns, cuts, fabrics and embellishments would not have looked out of place in a modern shop. Just goes to show how history repeats itself, although possibly not to the extremes of corsets and crinolines....