sun 08/12/2024

fashion

Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Fashion Freak Show, Southbank Centre review - c’est chic

What does one wear to watch a Fashion Freak Show, FFS? On the eve of London’s hottest day probably ever, the fashion faithful still turned out in sequins, PVC jackets, knee-high lace-up boots, turbans, wigs and floral headpieces, a skin-tight...

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Mary Quant, Victoria & Albert Museum review - quantities of Quant

Mary Quant first made her name in 1955 with the wildly fashionable King’s Road boutique Bazaar. Initially selling a “bouillabaisse” of stock it was not until a pair of pyjamas she made was bought by an American who said he’d copy and mass produce...

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Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams, Victoria & Albert Museum - sumptuous

The heart of the V&A’s sumptuous Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams is a room dedicated to the workmanship of the fashion house’s ateliers. A mirrored ceiling reflects dazzling strip-lit cases which hold the ghosts of ballgowns, slips and...

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Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, V&A review - appearances aren't everything

When in 2004 Frida Kahlo’s bedroom – sealed on the command of her husband Diego Rivera for 50 years from her death – was opened, a trove of clothes and personal items was discovered. They shed new light on the life of this iconic Mexican...

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McQueen review - the dark brilliance of Alexander McQueen

Lee Alexander McQueen said that he pulled the horrors out of his soul and put them on the catwalk. Eight years after his death, and three years after the record-breaking Savage Beauty retrospectives at the Metropolitan Museum and the V&A, his...

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Phantom Thread review - Daniel Day-Lewis bows out in style

A perfectionist says goodbye to an art form he has done so much to nourish by playing – you guessed it – a perfectionist. From the minute Daniel Day-Lewis first appears in Phantom Thread, looking sartorially splendid and more aquiline than...

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Daniel Day-Lewis: 'I'm quite good at mending things'

Daniel Day-Lewis doesn’t look like a 60-year-old retiree. He’s wearing a striped T-shirt under a dark blue shirt, light brown trousers which descend no further than mid-calf and boots laced high above the ankle he could easily have worn as a young...

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Love, Cecil review - poignant, inspiring, and very sad

It’s shameful to admit it, but it’s perhaps rather surprising that a film about a fashion photographer and designer should end up being so profoundly moving and inspiring. Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s deft biopic about Cecil Beaton starts off dancing...

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Giacomo Balla: Designing the Future, Estorick Collection

The wonderful Estorick collection, tucked away in Highbury Fields in London, is internationally renowned for its collection of modern Italian art, with a core of major Futurist works. Its new temporary exhibition focuses on one of these Futurist...

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Personal Shopper

What is Personal Shopper? Is it a haunted-house horror movie, a woman-in-peril thriller? Is it a satire on celebrity and the fetishistic world of fashion or an exercise in existential angst for the generation more familiar with texting than talking...

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The First Monday in May

“I’m so tired of hearing that McQueen is the best show we’ve ever done. It’s become a bit of an albatross,” complains Andrew Bolton, curator of the New York Metropolitan museum’s costume institute (he’s from Blackburn, Lancashire, and loved the New...

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Absolutely Fashion: Inside British Vogue, BBC Two

Documentary film-maker Richard Macer, who has only just bought his first copy of Vogue, is embedded in the magazine in its centenary year. “The office here is a very polite and guarded world,” he murmurs nervously. “Over the next few months I’m...

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