Today we visited London to see the Liberty exhibition at the fashion and textiles museum, the v&a and we popped into the Barbican for a tiny textile exhibition. We started off at the Barbican, a large arts venue which I hadn’t visited before and therefore was a good opportunity to experience something new. The exhibition was very small and was situated in the library, it featured hand crafted textile pieces such as felted wall hangings and woven items. If I’m honest it wasn’t to my taste but there was one collection I liked and they were made by Audrey Critchley. She drew the images, screen printed them onto fabric and then embroidered on top. I thought this looked very effective and it was very well produced with a clear design in black and white line drawing. I’ve attached a link so you can see for yourselves, there are also step by step images on her website to show the process.
We then travelled on the tube to the Fashion and Textiles museum to see the Liberty exhibition. It was interesting to see how the Liberty brand has developed over time, from their early stages, becoming more popular after Ww2 and how they still keep their prints up to date by collaborating with brands and designers such as Anna Sui, Barbour and Nike. Arthur Liberty was a sales clerk at Farmer and Rogers great cloak and shop emporium, he then befriended artists of the aesthetic movement, leading him to open his own shop. The Liberty shop was founded 140 years ago and started off as a warehouse supplying fashionable items, Arthur wanted to expand and set new trends by producing fabric and clothing through the shop. The liberty designs are very recognisable with heavy floral prints and bright vintage colours, leading to the prints still being fashionable now.
Finally we visited the Victoria and Albert museum, this is my favourite place to view exhibitions and they have an amazing shop! We looked around the V&A to get inspiration for next years semester where we’ll be looking at treasures. The V&A features collections from all over the world and has a costume section for the Fashion element. The Pleasure and Pain shoe exhibition is still on if you’d like to visit, but you do have to pay to get into the exhibition.
Ruth Ashwell 