Shoegazer Visits: The V&A Museum, Ldn. Pt 2.

Part 2 - Fashion.

The fashion and costume department of the V&A wasn’t as vast as I’d remembered it... and, excuse me V&A, but where were Elton John’s glasses?! I’m an accessories kind of girl and they had stuck in my head since my last visit there years ago, but this time there didn’t seem to be any accessories except a few gloves and shoes. Pfft. Maybe I missed a section? Who knows. Anyway, what did I see that I liked? Well, the first section of the fashion zone that I came to was the Future Fashion display, where outfits by graduates from the Royal College of Art are on show. There were a lot of shoulders going on... and harsh structured lines. This outfit reminded me of Darf Vader’s mask (I’m not so hot on fashion talk... likening this to old Darf’s mask is the best I can do...)

This ensemble (below) by 2008 graduate Heikki Salonen (b.1979, Helsinki) caught my attention because it is based on The Cure’s Disintegration album cover and, well, I’m always going to be biased to anything Cure related. A small section of the cover image has been blown up and repeated. It is purposefully pixellated to reveal the digital process behind it, and the design has been printed onto silk crepe.

Another piece by Salonen that I quite liked was this sleeveless, jacket/dress with a pearl shirt underneath it which can be worn separately.

These ensembles (below) by Kate Eary put a playful twist on traditional men’s military wear with brass door locks echoing the ornamental fastenings (“frogging”) on ceremonial and military clothing.

Elsewhere, I liked this cascading dress, I didn’t catch who it was by:

This vintage YSL (I think?) embellished dress:

And this vented sports corset, I like the structure of it:

Next up: The rest of the museum!