COMING SOON: 20 Years of Dazed and Confused exhibition

Here’s a date for your diary. Friday 4th November sees the opening of 20 Years of Dazed and Confused Magazine: Making It Up As We Go Along. at Somerset House. And, good news, entry is free. The latest London event with a fashion focus (following the excellent Masters of Style in the summer), the exhibition will look back at two decades of the art and style bible’s cutting edge content, celebrated cover stars – including Kate Moss, pictured – and iconic imagery. Curated by Jefferson Hack (who cofounded the magazine in 1991 with the photographer so famous he only needs one name, Rankin).  Work on show comes from some of the biggest names in the art and fashion worlds, from stylists like Katie Grand and Alister Mackie to artists Damien Hirst and Sam Taylor-Wood.  Alongside the exhibition, a book with the same title will be released, chronicling the ‘make it up as we go along’ spirit. I’ll be first in line at Somerset House come November, so expect a review shortly after.

20 Years of Dazed and Confused Magazine: Making It Up As We Go Along is on at Somerset House from 4 November 2011 – 29 January 2012. Entry is free. See the Somerset House website for more details.

Join the call to bring the Alexander McQueen exhibition home

Fashion editor Melanie Rickey thinks that New York’s recent Alexander McQueen exhibition should be brought home to London - and we couldn’t agree more.

You can’t have missed the acres of web space recently devoted to Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty, the exhibition that was held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer. Heck, there were street style blog posts and articles written about the queue on the last weekend alone, when closing time was extended to midnight to meet visitor demand. I don’t think a queue has had that must press coverage since the Eurostar disaster at King’s Cross St Pancras two Christmases ago (I should know – I got home to Holland three days late because of it).

My point is, the exhibition was a huge success. Described by Suzy Menkes in the New York Times as ‘exciting, stimulating and thought-provoking,’ it attracted 661,509 visitors between May and August. Which is great news, a fitting tribute to the all-too-short life of one of Britain’s greatest ever designers. But therein lies the rub: so far, there are no plans to hold the exhibition to Britain, and the city that Lee Alexander McQueen called home.

In an attempt to remedy this, Grazia’s Melanie Rickey (who you might know better as blogger @Fashedatlarge) has started a campaign to bring Savage Beauty to London, and we at Style & Then Some wholeheartedly support her efforts. Using an online petition and the hashtag #bringmcqueenexhibitionhome on Twitter, Rickey hopes to persuade the organisers to stage the show at the Victoria and Albert museum, London’s principal venue for fashion exhibitions. There’s no doubt it would be hugely popular, so would make sound financial sense. But more than that, the people of London deserve a chance to see up close the work of this visionary designer. A retrospective of the house of McQueen really belongs in the place where he lived, worked and, tragically, died.

If you, too, want to see Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty brought home to London, add your name to the more than 2,100 signatures on the online petition. While you’re at it, why not post on Twitter the reason you think the exhibition should come to London. Don’t forget the hashtag #bringmcqueenexhibitionhome.
UPDATE: Success! The McQueen exhibition WILL be coming to London, Fashedatlarge confirms. Job well done.

//

Ten things I learned at the royal wedding dress exhibition

The Royal Collection ©2011, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 

1. Six different types of lace can be seen on the dress.
2. Four of the lace motifs were chosen to represent the nations of the United Kingdom– rose, thistle, daffodil and shamrock.
3. The lace was appliquéd onto the satin gazar fabric by the Royal School of Needlework, an embroidery school that dates back to 1872.
4. The sewing needles had to be renewed every three hours to ensure they remained sharp enough.
5. The overall design of the dress was intended, according to designer Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, to ‘look to the past but look forward as well,’ so the bustle echoed a traditional Victorian shape but the corsetry was typical of the house of Alexander McQueen.
6. The skirt pattern was shaped like an unfolding flower.
7. Heavy canvas was strategically placed on the ‘petals’ of the skirt to make sure it retained its shape when Catherine walked up the aisle.
8. The earrings that the Middleton family had commissioned as a gift for their daughter feature a diamond in the shape of an acorn, as seen on the family’s coat of arms.
9. The Royal wedding cake featured 900 flowers and leaves made out of icing.
10. Because they didn’t eat the royal wedding cake itself (it’s on show at the exhibition now) the Duke of Cambridge had a chocolate biscuit cake commissioned by McVities, presumably to keep reception guests happy.

The Royal Wedding Dress: A story of Great British Design is open until 3^rd October 2011 at the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace. Visit the Royal Collection website for more details and to book tickets.

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-25393764-1']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

My very stylish week part 2: in which I meet a fashion hero

After a trip to Selfridges on Monday (read all about it in My very stylish week part 1) my stylish week continued on Thursday night with the opening of the new Somerset House exhibition Masters of Style: Celebrating the Stories behind Italian Fashion.

Dolce and Gabbana SS2011 by Steven Klein

I’m not sure how I ended up on the VIP invite list for this private view  (thanks for that 77 PR), but I was more than happy to go along, not least because the exhibition was curated by a man whose name is usually prefaced with the words ‘legendary fashion writer’ – Colin McDowell. The show brings together photography from the archives of six major Italian fashion houses – Giorgio Armani, Dolce and Gabbana, Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci, Missoni and Prada. The designers themselves provide captions, as does McDowell and the result is a beautiful exhibition that fashion and photography fans alike will love.

While most of the guests on Thursday seemed happy to stay downstairs and quaff the free bottles of beer provided by sponsors Peroni Nastro Azzurro, I ventured up to where the photographs were on display. I’m glad I did, because there I found Mr McDowell. I quickly switched on the Voice Memos app on my iPhone (so useful as a makeshift dictaphone) and nervously approached (this guy is a fashion journalism hero of mine OK?) to see if I could ask a couple of questions. McDowell kindly agreed and I managed to get some pretty good quotes for my review, which you can read over on Fashionising.com. Now the only thing left to do is work out how I get on the VIP invite list for every other fashion exhibition in town.

Prada AW1998 by Albert Watson Prada

Gisele Bundchen for Missoni 2003 by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggot