SHOES 

PLEASURE AND PAIN

V&A

So a couple weeks back my lovely boss treated the ICMS team to the Shoes Pleasure and Pain exhibition at the V&A - it was nothing short of inspiring. The collection was pretty amazing and the short films were fab. The most memorable part of the exhibition was watching the short films on how 5 renowned designers (Manolo Blahnik, Sandra Choi of Jimmy Choo, Caroline Groves, Marc Hare and Christian Louboutin) within the footwear industry deal with the specific elements of the design process. Most of their responses within this 12 minute clip explored in my opinion the ever changing relationships with technology, either with design (using CAD as to the old fashioned way of using pen and paper) or even the manufacturing process. Caroline Groves in particular relished in the fact that bespoke shoe making allowed her to take complete control of the making process using only a sewing machine in her kitchen to complete a beautifully custom made pair of shoes. In comparison other designers almost felt eternally indebted to their manufactures and worked meticulously together to recreate the exact design that was initially conceived from a sketch or CAD design. The exhibition brought together all of these components, including a brief history in footwear all the way to shoes in the present, that have completely changed the way shoes have been designed and made.

V&A Museum

£12 entry

South Kensington Tube Station

www.vam.ac.uk

Victoria and Albert Museum

@V_and_A

@vamuseum

Alexander McQueen
Savage Beauty

The Ultimate Visionary

This was one of those exhibitions where I had to actually digest what I had just observed.  Now, I know this sounds slightly exaggerative, but it’s not untill you follow the exhibition all the way round that you fully understand the extent of this man’s exceptional talent. I was in awe the whole way through; with his tragic death at the back of my mind, and the immense loss of talent the fashion industry is forever going to miss. The term ‘visionary’ gets thrown around quite alot when talking about successful creatives, and rightly so, when we are talking about your ‘Steve Jobs’ types. Of late, I’ve heard a number of times, Kanye West  referred to as a visionary. Now, whilst I can’t deny his enormous musical talent ( I enjoy waiting for his next installments of albums, concerts and features as much as the next person), I feel we have lost sight of what ‘visionary’ actually means. Of course it’s all very subjective and based on opinions, but for me, Alexander McQueen encompasses the whole package of what the term means, and this isn’t strictly limited to his designs. His shows were practically theatre productions, accessories were exuberently embellished, he wholeheartedly lived for the brand; from the designs, to the make up and show concepts, allowing us to somehow unpick, unravel and understand the mind of McQueen. So to celebrate this ultimate visionary, I will leave you with some of his most memorable pieces of footwear that naturally look like pieces of sculpted art work. (and because photography was prohibited at the exhibition GRR!)

Website

Alexander McQueen

V&A Museum

Station
South Kensington Underground

Price

£17.50 (adult ticket) concessions vary dependent on the type of tickets.
I bought mine from LoveTheatre

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@worldmcqueen

@vamuseum

Twitter

@worldmcqueen

@v_and_A

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Alexander McQueen
Victoria and Albert Museum

Notes
Book your tickets in advance to avoid missing out - weekdays in the afternoon are best viewing times. (it's not as busy as the weekends as you can imagine)

Make sure you take advantage of the free Swarovski booklet they hand out while you are waiting in the queue to enter the exhibition.

Make sure you give at least an hour and a half of your time to the exhibition to fully immerse yourself and enjoy it.

Unfortunately photography, sketching and phones were prohibited from the exhibition (they were pretty specific about what wasn't allowed).

Spend some time in the gift shop after the exhibition, I picked up a sketch book for £5 (I just had to) and 3 postcards for £3 which I have already mounted on my wall.