I was meeting my friend in London and she had said that she wanted to visit this exhibition before we embarked on some Christmas shopping and a late Sunday lunch. So we met on The Strand outside Somerset House and walked past the glorious Christmas tree there and all the people having lots of fun on the ice rink. It took us a while to navigate through the building – following the red floor trail - to the river side and basement exhibition area.
The first exhibit is a huge table light box containing examples of some of the amazing techniques used in Valentino creations (there are supporting videos later in the exhibition showing “the girls” at work) but your eyes are drawn to an enormous wall-mounted rose onto which moving designs and images are projected.
Then there is a large room with wall photos of royalty and celebrities who have worn the designs and some of the highlights of his career – 1957 Guy Laroche, 1961 Elizabeth Taylor, 1968 Jackie O, 2007 Julia Roberts. There are glass cases containing programmes from shows, invitations to famous people (e.g. Liza Minelli), press clippings and even greetings cards and correspondence from Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
There are also cases showing the original sketches that were the inspiration for his designs. Interesting that he worked mostly in pencil and the detailing – even at this stage – is incredible. The swatches of fabric are tiny and almost an afterthought. This was all very interesting but we were desperate to see the actual dresses.
So we climbed the impressive spiral staircase and found ourselves at the start of a long catwalk. It was an interesting reversal – we walked down the central cat walk admiring the numerous outfits on either side which were interspersed with chairs bearing the place cards for the most illustrious guests you can imagine.
Outfits are arranged in groups broadly by colour – creams, monochrome, reds and occasionally by theme – sparkling evening dresses, a particular textile technique - and they are simply stunning. Each dress has a number which you look up in your programme to see the year of design and a brief description.
I was stopped in my tracks by 29 “Designed in 1955, realised in 1990 – white rebrode lace evening gown with pink degrade chiffon drape detailing. A tribute to Mexican actress Maria Felix” and 33 “A/W 1987/88 Black and ecru chiffon zebra design evening dress with black satin skirt”. The intricate work and detailing on these dresses was astonishing. The signature pieces – back tassels, “bum bows” and the Vs – were easily recognisable.
There are over 130 dresses so it took a while to walk through the crowds and admire those on both sides of the cat walk. What I also really liked that whilst many of the dresses were on stick-thin mannequins, there were a fair few that were on mannequins that were proper female shape and that the waists and bias cut flattered the feminine form.
Downstairs again for a traditional wedding dress worn by a Greek princess and those videos showing the painstaking work in creating these pieces of wearable art. And then the shop – which had gorgeous items and books which were all sadly way beyond my budget.
http://www.somersethouse.org.uk/visual-arts/valentino The exhibition is on until 3rd March 2013.
