Tim Walker: Wonderful Things

On Saturday I was transformed to the wonderful world of Tim Walker at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Tim is one of the world's leading fashion photographers and has photographed for Vogue for over a decade now, using extravagant staging and romantic motifs to characterise his style. This extensive exhibition is called Wonderful Things and shows his extraordinary creative process and explains some of the thoughts behind the images. The exhibition includes pictures, films, photographic sets and special installations.

The first room shows a rather conventional retrospective of his work, showing images of models used for Vogue as well as portraits of famous actors and musicians.

Margot Robbie

Nicole Kidman

Joanna Lumley

The V&A asked Walker to to explore their archives and select 10 items that excited him and then create photographic projects based on those items. The rest of the exhibition uses room sets, created by Shona Heath, that make you feel like you've stumbled into one of Walker's photographs.

Tim has always been seduced by the inky blackness and sexual confidence of Aubrey Beardsley's illustrations, and the museum houses hundreds of Beardsley's prints. This image, titled The Peacock Skirt, was one of Beardsley's illustrations for Oscar Wilde's translation of Salome. Tim's interpretation of the Beardlsey illustrations uses striking images in black and white. Some use models in black clothing on a stark white backdrop, other images use a negative effect of black and white.

This was my favourite image of this section where the model's feet have been elongated and she hangs onto a draped harp.

The next section was titled Cloud 9 and the photographs are inspired by the V&A's historical paintings from South Asia. Tim has always been drawn to India and these photographs celebrate the country's vibrancy and rich history of storytelling.

The next section was called Box of Delights and involves a room bedecked in pink. With club music playing, it is Tim's way of expressing the need for everyone to have a world where you can be whoever you want to be, such as in the London club scene.

The V&A has an amazing collection of intricately decorated snuffboxes and Tim saw one with a dragon on it. He visualised an empress walking her pet dragon at night and picking a flower that only blooms at full moon.

The 16th century lacquer snuff box with shell inlay and carved stones

The section titled The Land Of The Living Men shows all photographs of men. Tim wanted to magnify the male nude by making it as big as possible.The title is from a William Morris novel.

Handle With Care is a section of the exhibition that is a love letter to the conservators, curators and archivists at the museum. The dresses are exquisitely wrapped up and become beautiful ghosts. Tim imagines the characters in these photos coming to life in the museum.

Why Not Be Oneself is a section that uses portraits of Tilda Swinton who has inhabited the role of the poet, Dame Edith Sitwell. These pictures are a celebration of age and individuality.

The final section of the museum is called Soldiers Of Tomorrow and is inspired by a 65 metre long photo of the Bayeux Tapestry. Tim was inspired to create photographs that evoke both the chaos and the beauty of the tapestry. As the fashion industry can be very wasteful, Tim liked the idea of everything being recycled, home made and hand knitted for this shoot. Old ironing boards became shields and vacuum cleaners became mad medieval instruments. These modern soldiers are eco-warriors or tomorrow.

This stunning exhibition is on until 8th March 2020.

Friday fun

On Fridays I often try and do something fun. Last Friday a friend and I had booked a table for lunch at Bernares, a modern Indian restaurant on Berkely Square. The table was booked for 1pm so we decided to meet earlier and have a mooch around the area. After a dip into Fortnum and Mason to drool over the food section, we headed to nearby Bond Street to drool over the fashion. The Ralph Lauren store was all about the bling and we decided to go in and have a look around. It's always great to see the clothes up close and even though they are very simple in style, the cut and fabric choice is stunning.

From Bond Street we cut across towards Berekly Square and came across a gallery called Gagosian on Davies Street. We were immediately drawn in by the large simple photos of the celebrities (like Mick Jagger, below) and only then realised they were photos by David Bailey.

David Bailey became a well known photographer in the 1960s with a distinctive style using stark white backgrounds and striking, seemingly spontaneous poses.

The exhibition was showcasing iconic photos he took of celebs at the time, such as Michael Caine above. He liked to spend time chatting to each celebrity and getting to know them and is quoted to have said " The pictures I take are simple and direct and about the person I'm photographing and not about me. I spend more time talking to the person than I do taking pictures".

We were struck by how modern each of these photos looked. Any of the subjects could be a contemporary. I love the photo of Andy Warhol above. We see him in such a different light. Jean Shrimpton (below) is shown in a much more natural light to how we have seen her in the stylised fashion shoots of the 1960s.

By this time we were hungry and thirsty and lunch was calling so we headed to Benares for some scrumptious food and tasty cocktails. The restaurant serves 'Modern Indian cuisine with a contemporary British twist' and we weren't disappointed! We had the set lunch and I chose the light and tasty semolina crusted crispy prawns as a starter and for main I had the fenugreek-infused chicken, washed down with a lychee and rose champagne cocktail. Yum!

As we were leaving, the head waiter invited us into the private dining room to show us a view of the kitchen which was fab! It was great to see how smoothly (and calmly) everything was running.

What a fab day! And after a little relax on the sofa early evening, I still managed to go Ceroc dancing in the evening, to work off all that scrumptious food and drink....

Nautical naughtiness

A few weeks ago I went on a trip down to the Isle of Wight, a place I hadn't been to since I was ten years old when I went on a school trip there for a week.

I drove down Lymington with my friend Nicky and we got the ferry over to Yarmouth and then drove a short distance to the house that she owns there. It was heaven! Who knew such a haven of loveliness could be so easy to get to?! Her house is on a complex that has a swimming pool and spa, so we made the most of those, as well as visiting some of the attractions on the island.

Yarmouth has a sweet little pier and on Saturday afternoon I went for a stroll along it and watched the sailing bots coming backwards and forwards.

The first place we visited was a lovely photography gallery at Dimbola House, the home of Julia Margaret Cameron who was born 200 years ago and only took her first photo at the age of 49. She was known for her portraits of celebrities of the time and created quite a romantic feel to her photos.

There was a photo of Leonard Bernstein at the gallery (taken by photographer Lotte Meitner-Srop) and I loved the quote accompanying his photo:

I also went to Osborne House, the home of Queen Victoria. It has beautiful grounds and a lovely walk down to the sea where I sat and in a deckchair and enjoyed the view. 

From there, I drove down to the South Coast and Steephill Cove for an afternoon cup of tea. I highly recommend a trip there as it's hidden away and hard to find, which means it's not so busy. It's only a little way along the coast from Ventor, but a whole world away in feel.

As a textile designer, I'm always on the look out for new design reference and my trip to the Isle of Wight was very fruitful. I often design nautical-inspired collections and the island was a treasure trove for ideas. Here are just a few I came across.

The picture below was actually taken in John Lewis! I love the big red graphic lobster.

I love Blondie

From an early age, I loved Debbie Harry's beauty, timeless bad-girl style and fearless attitude. Parallel Lines was one of the first albums I bought and I played it endlessly, learning all the words (or what I thought were the words!) and not necessarily knowing what all of them meant…..

So I was excited to go and see an exhibition of photos by Chris Stein (co-founder of Blondie) on Friday at Somerset House. The exhibition focuses on the era of their lives in New York in the late seventies and showcases a series of iconic photographs providing a behind the scenes look on life in the band. On top of some amazing images of Deborah Harry, it includes intimate shots of Iggy Pop, David Bowie and the Ramones, at infamous venues such as CBGBs and Andy Warhol's Factory. These photos are timeless and could just have easily been taken today as they were over 30 years ago!

For more info on the album Parallel Lines, I highly recommend checking out the BBC documentary made recently. It tells the story of the making of the album, but also gives an insight into the spirit of 1970s New York. A must-see for any Blondie fan.