New Year Culture

Last piece of Christmas until next year. Sad sad times.

Yesterday it was the last day of my festive break before returning to the daily grind of "normal" life. Not sure, but you might be able to tell I am really reluctant for this time of year to end, there is just a hint of that coming through. A tad!

I had returned from spending a lovely time with my family on Sunday afternoon and so had the first Bank Holiday of the new year free to do something fun!

My housemate Holly, her boyfriend Jonathan and I had decided we were going to check out the current exhibitions at the Design Museum. We had a lovely walk along the Thames from London Bridge, past Tower Bridge to get to the museum. It was a very cold, typical, steely grey, London winters day, and I think I even spied a few flakes of snow, but I have always enjoyed walking along the river.

Spotted: The backs of Holly and Jonathan (or HoJo), bottom right.

I also love Tower Bridge, I see it most mornings on my way into work and it never fails to cheer me up. It's such an iconic sight, a true London landmark. And by that I am using the Matt Groening definition of iconic - whereby if you see something in silhouette it is instantly recognisable. That's how he designed The Simpsons characters don't you know? And you can have that fact for free. Tell it at parties. Go nuts.

Le Pont de la Tour. Continental.

The exhibition we were particularly keen to see was 'Drawing Fashion'. It was a reterospective tour through a collection of artwork which charts the history of fashion illustration. It was absolutely fascinating to see the important and prominent role that this artform had for the fashion industry in the days before photography was mainstream. The 90-odd year old copies of Vogue on display behind glass from the 1910s and 1920s were amazing to view. Mainly to note how thin they were compared to the hefty tomes published on a monthly basis these days as they are now stuffed full of ads. And as photography took off in the 1930s, grew in terms of technological ability and became the default method of capturing fashion, how the role of fashion illustration changed, and what the future holds for it... all made for a very interesting afternoon.

Photography was banned in the museum itself, but Holly HANDILY bought some postcards in the gift shop of her fave illustrations, which I then duly stole in order to demonstrate what I have been waffling on about below:

Illustrative

I can't decide whether I prefer illustration or photography as a medium for documenting fashion collections. I am a keen photographer, and love to look at fashion photography in the likes of Vogue et al, but some of the artwork I saw on display this afternoon was absolutely stunning and I hope both still continue to have important roles in the future.

The exhibition is running until March 6th so if you are remotely interested in fashion or art, get yourself down there.