Lisa gets Coutured.....at the V&A

Saturday was a bit of a decent day, so I really wanted to be out and about in London. First and most importantly I finally got around to putting the Spain holiday films in at my favourite photo developer in Covent Garden. I didn't hang around there, just too chaotic. But still for something to do I was going to suggest some window shopping on Kensington High street.

That would have required money, something that pay day must bring me....grrr. However, my decision was helped by the fact that neither the District or Circle lines were running on the weekend, and I would have had to walk there from South Kensington.

So when stranded by the Piccadilly line on a school holiday weekend...(ugh)....in the museum district and the fancy French part of London, no less, do as a fancy French person would do and.... go to a Museum. Not just any museum, the V&A, the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they were having an exhibition for The Golden Age of Couture:Paris and London 1947 - 1957.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/vastatic/microsites/1486_couture/index.php

I had no idea this would be so popular, I got there at 3pm and managed to get the last ticket for the 4:30pm opening. I got to wander around the Museum for a while, exploring British culture through the years and different periods, like Georgian and Baroque. How some of these exquisite pieces of clothing, tapestries, jewellery, silverware, and fine china make it from around the 1600's till now in one piece I will never know!!

At 4'ish I was ready for couture and snuck in early....shhh... It was absolutely packed, but fortunately, as with the British, orderly queues formed around the various exhibition cases. So it was more meaningful when you finally got to see such beautiful clothing up close. Oh I believe, with my tiny waist and curvy hips, that was soooo my period.

I should have been obscenely wealthy around that time, everything would have fitted like a dream. They even had videos showing them putting on their waist cinching corsets...and then padding up their hips, can you believe it....no girl would pad out their hips these days. Then it was all about the curves, tiny waist, and the curves over the hips, with lots of flowey fabrics. It wasn't all Marilyn girls though, the models in the videos they showed of fashion shows back then were still sticks....sticks wearing super tight corsets to make them look curvey.

The dresses were so well preserved and beautiful, many from the private collections of wealthy London and Parisian ladies. There were suits, jackets, shoes....they just never date..., corsetry, day dresses, hats, gloves, ball gowns and more. Lots of Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Hardy Aimes, Viver, and Balenciaga....they also showed a bit of Audrey Hepburn after all in a few of her movies she was wearing some of these clothes.

It was well worth going and its just a pitty that...I may never own such beautiful clothes... and if I did I would wear them to death, no museum for them.... hahahaaa....