Cathy's Art Diary

Glamorous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum on the life of Elsa Schiaparelli and her fashion house. I loved this show! It was so well set out and full of beautiful clothes both from the original house and its reboot in this century under Daniel Roseberry. I liked the way it set out the ethos of Schiaparelli's designs then built on that to look at her clients and accessories. It used Roseberry's pieces sparingly through the early rooms before introducing a dedicated display at the end including Ariana Grande's Oscar dress complete with ruby slipper on the back. I think my favourite room was the semi-circle of jackets displayed like art works and at eye level so you could study the details. That was the only place where I experienced a bottle neck partly caused by the dramatic changing lighting which meant people were pausing to get the best light for a photograph and yes, I admit I was one of the guilty parties. I loved the room examining her collaboration ...

Useful online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum introducing their exhibition on the designer Elsa Schiaparelli. I went to the show the next day and this was a very useful introduction to it. I was so overwhelmed by the beautiful clothes it was good to have a narrative in my head already rather than having to piece it together via the labels. The was both enhanced by but also suffered from having four speakers, Sonnet Stanfill, Lydia Caston, Rosalind McKever and Simon Sladen. All of them were good but it made the talk a bit fragmented. They outlined the four themes of the show and talked us through the highlights.