london

I set off on Monday to the capital in my disco pants and a shirt that looks remarkably like AA but was actually £2.50 from the Salvation Army.

Train journey was pretty awful, it was delayyyed and there were hardly any seats. Oh and that is a safety pin fastening my trews, I need to adjust them. Whyy did I buy medium?

Anyway, first place we went was the Design Museum, to see the Basso & Brooke and Sustainable Futures* exhibitions.

This is all I got from Basso & Brooke. It wasn't really an exhibition, you didn't have to pay or anything, it just had a video showing their inspiration for the collection and the dresses displayed.

Sustainable Futures* wasn't just fashion-related, it was all about eco-friendly designs, however the fashiony bits were these garments made from hemp and dyed with all-natural dyes by Miriam Ridha;

And these garments made from "unusable" parachute material from the Ministry of Defence by Chris Raeburn.

Another interesting exhibition at the Design Museum was the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year 2010, which was basically a collection of life-changing/enhancing designs all under one roof. My favourites were;

These little pandas which were mounted on swivelling platforms and followed you around whenever you moved. It was like those little aliens from Toy Story.

Miniature Beth Ditto! Nah, it was just a teeny-tiny Beth showing her most famous design from her collaboration with Evans.

There were also screens showing McQueen and Balmain's S/S 2010 shows, with just "Alexander McQueen" in general as one of the designers of the year, and "Balmain Jacket". I'm assuming they meant the epic shoulder pads, although the A/W 2009 show would have been a better example of it. It was amazing to see videos of the shows, it's so much more mesmerising than just looking at pictures. 

Next, we went to the Grace Kelly: Style Icon exhibition at the V&A. Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures, it was cool to see the beautiful clothes she actually wore, and to get a better insight into her relationship with fashion both on-screen and off.

Took about a million pictures of the general exhibitions at the V&A that are always there.. here are a few.

Asia;

Fashion;

McQueen dress. Oh baby. It was like seeing a famous person in the street only a million times better.

Moschino bra dress;

Paul Poiret dress;

Theatre and Performance;

Adam Ant makeup!

We also went to the Maison Martin Margiela exhibition at Somerset House, which was amazing, but again I couldn't take any pictures. It was really inspiring to see how they approached the design process, and how it was divided up into certain techniques such as "Paint", "Destroy" and "Trompe l'oeil". I also got to see such iconic pieces as the wig coat and the disco ball top in the flesh.

The final educational activity was visiting some "conceptual designers" stores. We went to Comme des Garcons at Dover Street Market, Yohji Yamamoto and Rick Owens. AGAINNN, I wasn't allowed to take any photos, but the clothes were absolutely amazing. My favourite was Dover Street Market. It was way more informal than the other stores and had a wide range of designers there. The interior was really well done too.

However, I've finally returned, and it's taken me about an hour to write this when I was supposed to be napping before meeting Meggo. Whoops.

Ps. sorry if the quality on some of these pictures isn't the best, I wasn't allowed flash and have shaky hands.