This week I visited the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with a friend. This is the view of an amazing chandelier hanging above an information desk on the ground floor. It was huge and went much higher than this, I thought it was plastic, but apparently it was glass, the people working underneath must have nerves of steel.
My main reason for going was to get some ideas for my dress for college and I got a few, in the fashion section where there were a couple of dresses that caught my eye.
This dress by David Hopwood was beautiful, it had a low back and quite high front, loads of layers. The blurb said this...
'Twelve layers of gathered tulle give David Hopwood's extra long dress its shape. He demonstrates meticulous attention to detail, cutting each rectangular pattern piece just millimetres larger than the previous one.'
These dresses are by Lea Carreno, I just liked the stripes and the shape.
I also really liked this dress, it was a costume for A Midsummer Night's Dream, I think. It's just so beautiful, its quite simple style , but the gathering, fabric, embellishments, string belt, love it. I shall imagine myself floating through a forest in it, Hermia-style.
As for the rest of the museum, there were a couple of highlights, the new Maharaja exhibition was good, also the Telling Tales exhibition. Imagine a lovely rug of 2 interlocking circles intended to look like 2 red pools created by the actual volume of blood in 2 human bodies. Nice. Scary rooms, all kinds of spookiness. It was an excellent source of material for any nightmares I am planning to have soon.
Other than that, there were lots of pretty things, in a beautiful extremely well maintained museum. I went to the Natural History Museum in the summer and the V and A seemed quite immaculate in comparison. The cafe and gardens were beautiful, as were the cakes in the cafe.
We made a quick stop at Liberty's to look at fabric on the way back, but I was left a little disappointed. They didn't have their new stock even though it's on the website, and I wanted to have a look at it to see if would do for my college project.
They do stock Amy Butler and Anna-Maria Horner fabric there now, but it's the very bright colours and I was looking for something more muted as I am planning to make this for me in the coming weeks after I have made the 'little' version for my daughter. We shall not be matching.
As for the rest of the museum, there were a couple of highlights, the new Maharaja exhibition was good, also the Telling Tales exhibition. Imagine a lovely rug of 2 interlocking circles intended to look like 2 red pools created by the actual volume of blood in 2 human bodies. Nice. Scary rooms, all kinds of spookiness. It was an excellent source of material for any nightmares I am planning to have soon.
Other than that, there were lots of pretty things, in a beautiful extremely well maintained museum. I went to the Natural History Museum in the summer and the V and A seemed quite immaculate in comparison. The cafe and gardens were beautiful, as were the cakes in the cafe.
We made a quick stop at Liberty's to look at fabric on the way back, but I was left a little disappointed. They didn't have their new stock even though it's on the website, and I wanted to have a look at it to see if would do for my college project.
They do stock Amy Butler and Anna-Maria Horner fabric there now, but it's the very bright colours and I was looking for something more muted as I am planning to make this for me in the coming weeks after I have made the 'little' version for my daughter. We shall not be matching.
That glass 'chandelier' looks like a piece of Dale Chihuly's work. He is awesome. Also in 2005 he had a huge exhibition in Kew gardens - ironic, I just read a later post of yours regarding Kew gardens.. I just found your blog. Am busily reading back through your older posts. Marguerite.
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