Cathy's Art Diary

Delightful interview from the Victoria and Albert Museum with Paul Tazewell, the costume designer for Wicked. The talk was originally given the night before the premier in London but I had to listen to it as a recording however that did mean that I’d already seen the film so I was enthralled as I’d loved it. Tazewell was ably interviewed by Simon Sladen from the museum leading him through processes and characters. They sat on stage with two of the costumes. I loved the detail of the work and the thought and philosophy behind it. It makes me want to go and see the film again!

Fun exhibition in Covent Garden showcasing costumes from the Tina Turner Musical. Each of the six costumes reference a hit and was shown with a photograph of the costume in the show and the original outfit being worn by Tina Turner. I was amazed at how small the dresses were and assumed they might be reduced in size for the show but there is no indication of that in the commentary online so I maybe the actress playing the lead is tiny. The display marks six years of the show in the West End and was put on by the musical in partnership with Women’s Aid, who Tina Turner was a long-standing supporter of, to raise awareness and bring an end to domestic abuse. Closed 10 November 2024  

Small gem of an exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum looking at the relationship between fashion and film with the trend for retro dressing in the 1960s and 70s. I hadn’t known this show was on and got a lovely surprise to find costumes from “The Boyfriend” a film which I loved and which influenced my aesthetics at an early age. As well as the outfits designed and put together by Shirley Russell and archive material, the show included outfits by Barbara Hulanicki, Janice Wainwright and Ossie Clark which used the same ideas. It also talked about the fashion for collecting retro clothes and accessories at the time and I realised I’d been doing that without realising it was fashionable. I had a small collection of items some of which I wore. Closes 8 September 2024

Glamorous exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the concept of the Diva from Victorian opera singers to today. The ground floor looked at stage and screen and the more open upper floor looked at the reclaiming of the Diva. That floor was spectacular but I felt I lost track of the themes and narrative because it was so visually stunning. I didn’t take the headphones for the tour as a friend said she found it distracting as in a crowd it triggered in the wrong   places. In did fine instead of that I seemed to be surrounded by shouting middle aged people who couldn’t hear each other over the music in their ears. I loved that they included a lot of opera singers particularly as I still think of the idea of the diva as an opera concept. I also liked that they included film stars not just singers. It was a good touch that the biographies of the women pointed out where they had been pioneering in their field and linked this to the different phases of feminism. All...

Charming exhibition at the National Theatre highlighting the 12 prize winners in this award for theatre design. The prize is open to graduating designers or those who demonstrate equivalent skills and experience. Each is represented by a display with examples of their work. This was mainly photographs but also included costumes and set models. I loved Biz Sutton’s striking red outfit for “The Duchess of Malfi” set in 1910 which envisaged redesigned the Duchess and Antonio as a chauffeur and his female client. I also liked this set design by Peiyao Wang for “The Exterminating Angel” based on the film by Luis Buñuel. I loved the use of the piano lid as the stage. My favourite piece was a puppet for a play based on “His Dark Materials” by Yijing Chen. It was effectively displayed appearing from around a corner of the display. Closed 30 March 2024  

Charming online interview from the Victoria and Albert Museum with the costumier John Bright. Bright was interviewed by curator and film historian Keith Brodwick and they went through Bright’s career starting with BC costume dramas but with an emphasis on the work he did on Merchant Ivory films. He talked about how he uses vintage pieces where possible. He did this work via his company Cosprop which he wet up in 1965. They discussed collaboration with actors so it was fascinating that Helena Bonham-Carter joined the conversation to talk about the importance of the clothes to building a role and the process of working with Bright on a number of films including “A Room with a View”. The talk ended by looking at Bright’s recent charity work and the creation of the Bright Foundation to bring art education to young people with a theatre and museum space in Hastings.

Lovely display at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe of work by Rutgers BFA theatre designers from New Jersey, USA, who are currently in residence there. I was a bit confused as I saw a similar show at the Globe last year. I assume this was by a new intake of students but that wasn’t clear. Costume design and costume technician students had to design and create a cocktail hat that embodies a Shakespearean character which would work under candlelight. My favourite was this one for Lady Macbeth. My favourites though were by scenic and lighting design students who created small open boxes of a scenery design which, when you pressed a switch, produced a shadow on the back which was stunningly created from the shadow of the scene in front. My pick this year was this one of Bottom. No end date given but it had disappeared by next visit in February 2024. 

Fascinating online lecture from the Victoria and Albert Museum looking at the designs for the character of Mrs Coulter in the recent adaptation of “His Darks Materials” for television. The event, which was also live at the museum, brought together costume designer Caroline McCall and actor Ruth Wilson who played the character. Unfortunately I have lost the notes I took while watching so I don’t know the name of the lady who ably interviewed them. McCall talked about how she used the text of the books for inspiration for the clothes and Wilson talked about how she used the clothes to help her mould the character. They talked about how they discussed the clothes as part of both their creative practice and the influences they drew on. I have since finished the series which was visually stunning and the talk gave me a good insight into the depth of the thinking behind it.

Lovely display at the Sam Wannamaker Theatre at the Globe of work by Rutgers BFA theatre designers from New Jersey, USA, who are currently in residence there. Costume design and costume technician students had to design and create a cocktail hat that embodies a Shakespearean character which would work under candlelight. I loved these two for Olivia and Titania. My favourites though were by scenic and lighting design students who were tasked to create an object that with the addition of a single light source there a Shakespeare related shadows. These were small open boxes, each beautiful in their own right, which, when you pressed a switch, produced a shadow on the back which seemed was stunning created from the seat in front. I loved this one for Julius Caesar created from sheets of the US constitution. No end date given

Glorious exhibition at the Fitzrovia Chapel celebrating the life and work of performance artist, Leigh Bowery. This show was so moving as the venue was the chapel of the Old Middlesex hospital where Bowery died on New Years Eve 1994. It’s gold mosaic walls and ceiling were a fabulous backdrop for the opulent costumes which were on show. The title comes from what he asked his friend Sue Tilley to tell people after he had died. I’d seen Bowery’s costumes in an art context before and they look amazing. If you are an art buff it is easy to just see Bowery now as one of Lucien Freud’s models so it is always good to be reminded of his own work. I loved the a pink tunic decorated with crystals and a very Cruella Deville short number worn as part of a weeklong performance at a gallery in 1988. The outfit shown here was made for a TV appearance. I don’t always have the patience for watching a video in an exhibition but in this case, like most other people who were there, I sunk down to w...

Fun installation in Covent Garden of student responses to the musical Frozen which has recently opened in London. 2nd year students from Central Sain Martins were invited to create high-fashion, abstract interpretations of Christopher Oran’s scenery and costume designs for the show. The outfits focused on certain aspects of the story and design including the idea of the human side of animals such as the reindeer Sven. Another set looked at how different seats in the theatre can give different perceptions of the set and costumes. It was a shame the labels were so small that they were too small to read. I ended up photographing them so I could blow them up a bit. I particularly liked the outfits that responded to the effect of ice in the show from one which looked like a bouffant wedding dress to an angular grey catsuit.

Fascinating online interview from the Victoria and Albert Museum with Janty Yates, the designer of the costumes for “House of Gucci”. I was pleased I had seen and enjoyed the film a few days before the talk. Of course, being about Gucci, clothes were an important part of the styling of the film. The interviewer, Oriole Cullen, a curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum, started by asking Yates about her Oscar winning work on “Gladiator” and she talked about how she had factories making togas for the scenes with 3000 extras. This led her into talking about working with Ridley Scott who also directed the Gucci film. She talked about her process and how an artist, Laura Heath, draws all the outfits on the actors to share with the director and to be used in publicity by the studio. She told us how 30% of the clothes in the film were vintage rented, from costume houses and some from Lady Gaga’s own archives. I was fascinated to hear her talk about how involved Gaga was in choosing...

Fascinating streaming of an interview from the Victoria and Albert Museum with the Oscar winning costume designer Sandy Powell. Powell was interviewed by Bethan Holt, the fashion news and feature writer at the Telegraph, who started by asking how Powell began working in the industry and what got her to the top, the answer to the latter being “luck”! They discussed about how she researches her projects and I loved the quite of “there is always another way of doing something”. She talked about how she is driven to work on a film by the script and how she can’t start working on a costume until she knows who will be in the role.   The Q&A session was vibrant from questions about which actors were most involved in the design of their costumes, what it was like to see her outfits in exhibitions, about her work on Mary Poppins Returns and the difference between big and small budget films. I was fascinated to hear about her project to gather autographs on a white suit, a tuill...

Innovative approach to an end of year show by the University of the Arts London shown in various vacant shop windows around London. I first discovered this at One New Change when wandering around the City where I found these lovely costumes from students studying at Wimbledon College of Arts. They were beautifully displayed with good commentaries on the students and their projects. In windows opposite were designs for video games and possibly film sets. These did not display so well in this format but it was still a great way for the students to show their work. A week or so later I found   more costumes in shops on the Strand which was a nice surprise. I did try to download a map but didn’t manage to get the link to work.    

Lovely exhibition   at the National Theatre looking at the work of the costume department. The clothes were shown in a wonderful display like a low stage packed with some of your favourite National Theater characters from the last few years. It was fascinating to see the clothes close up and, unlike some theatrical costumes, the detail was stunning. I loved the fact that the exhibition looked at all aspects of the wardrobe department not just the designers.There was a interesting section on the dressers with a fun video of a quick change, and a look at the people who have to wash and maintain the clothes. They also looked at how clothes sometimes need to be distressed using an army jacket from Warhorse as an example. I think my favourite was a sheer, gold dress from the recent Anthony and Cleopatra with a green velvet coat decorated with gold scarabs.   Closes March 2020 Review Evening Standard

Stunning exhibition at Tate Modern on the life and work of the Russian artist Natalia Goncharova. The show was wonderfully colourful and included paintings, textile designs, book illustrations and theatrical designs. It chartered her work from rural Imperial Russia to her life in Paris after the 1920s. I loved the early work and it was a nice touch to show it with a peasants outfit of the time to show you where the colours and vibrancy came from. She showed an interest in textiles throughout her life and in fact the name of her family estate meant “cloth factory” and a number of the pictures in this section looked at the process of cloth making. The show looked at how Moscow, where Goncharova moved when she was eleven, was one of the best places in the world to see modern part as two industrialists, Ivan Morozov and Sergie Shchukin, had huge collections which they opened to the public and there was a room of pictures Goncharova would have seen there plus works they purc...

Lovely display at Kensington Palace of costumes from the film The Favourite. I loved the film and had though the costumes played a major part in the style of it. I liked the way they stuck to a black and white palette for the court and yet felt very varied. It was great to see a selection of them in a space that was used in the film. I liked Sarah Churchill’s wonderful shooting outfit complete with fake blood still splattered on it. Also the dress and cloak from when Queen Anne addressed Parliament. I was amused to see that the lace on three costumes for a group scene at court was just printed yet looked really effective. The politician’s parties were shown by the different colours they wore with the Tories in blue with white wigs and the Whigs in red with dark wigs. Can we bring that idea back please! The servants costumes were made from old jeans bought from charity shops. Up close you could tell and yet they are beautifully made. Closed on 10 March 2019

Fun exhibition at the O2 using costumes, props and art works from the Star Wars films to explore the idea of where our identity comes from. The identity bit was fun as you go round with a clever bracelet on and making choices and recording the answers which then creates a character for you at the end. I went round being fairly true to how I am an felt quite pleased with the outcome. If it hadn’t been so expensive it would have been fun to go round as an evil character to see what happened! There were interesting videos at each stage looking at nature, nurture, place values etc as elements which help to make up our personalities. However it has to be said most people, including me, were there to see the artefacts. The identity idea gave the show a good narrative but a storm trooper uniform is exciting whatever the context! I think the costumes were my favourite things and It was exciting to see the famous Princess Leia bikini. There was a good mix form the old and new films...

Disappointing exhibition at Liberty of costumes from the new TV series “The Crown” on the life of the Queen. I say disappointing because Facebook had kept advertising this to me and made it sound really good. They pointed you to an interview with the designer surrounded by various outfits. I thought it looked just up my street however when I got there there were only four outfits on display with one more in the window! I went all round the second floor assuming they’d be spread out round the department but no! What was there was lovely. Two outfits for the Queen and two for Princess Margaret which had been used to point out the difference between them and their lives. Really interesting but I wanted a lot more! A good example of over raising expectations! Closed on 13 November 2016.

Fun exhibition at the Old Truman Brewery looking at the work of the costumiers Angels. The first section of the show looked at the history of the company including designs contemporary to their foundation and talking about their origins hiring clothes in the 19th century to jobbing actors as they were expected to provide their own costumes for plays and were often picked on having the right clothes rather than their abilities! The second half focused on costumes they had produced and films they had worked on in a rough chronological order. I loved the 70s section including a dress for Margo on the Good Life and Glenda Jackson’s Cleopatra outfit from the Morecombe and Wise show. I also liked the costumes from Wicked which I’ve not seen but it’s now on my to do list! It was also interesting to see costume for films being made now which are out now such as an outfit for Maggie Smith in “Lady in the Van”, not exactly high glamour but fascinating to see the attention to de...