How Not to Stage an Exhibition; or, a guerilla public service announcement

Dear V&A,

Figuring you’re quite into your textiles and super-cool design students, I thought I could count on you for a decent couture exhibition.

Words, however, fail me.

But they don’t utterly fail me.

Is it so very hard to design an exhibition wherein patrons FLOW? It’s a bit of a bugger when you have to navigate an exhibit and wonder ‘have we been to that section yet?’ or ‘FFS, there are three streams of traffic going on here’.

Also, for £10 a ticket, you have a nerve. Most of the dresses were Bland Central Station. The only style-interesting pieces were those of Erdem, Atsuko Kudo (an amazing piece, but not enough to redeem yourself) and the McQueens. However, after the Met staged Savage Beauty, you lot didn’t have a chance in hell. For once the American ‘bigger and better’ proved advantageous – Christ, they got a hologram of Kate Moss. WTF did you produce? Some piss-poor home projector unit and some After School Special footage. I cringed *for* you.

Also, a quick sentence on semantics. Most of your dresses were merely ‘evening’, not ‘ballgowns’.

The Norman Hartnell you had was okkkkk. I’ve seen better at the Kerry Taylor auctions. Admit it, you drafted in Princess Di’s Catherine Walker dress in a deliberate low punch, didn’t you? That combined with the Elizabeth Emanuel…jeez, give me a break. How predictable a piece. The abundance of Hardy Amies…bbbbbbboring!

All you did was project to thosuands of visitors that all the British Isles has to show for itself is…oh, the Royal Family. Wheeling out the same old done-to-death crap.

Please have a word with your designers and curators. What the HELL was going on with the mezzanine floor? Static displays with one or two, oooh, revolving, mannequins? The ones revered enough to be mobile had no reason to be mobile! The pathetic twirling debased the couture – giving the fabric no movement and rendering the design into stuff of dressing up boxes, not goddamn couture. Perhaps this is why you attract the uncaring masses, who show such respect with their velour tracksuits (no, I’m not joking). Why not put the latex Kudo on a revolving mannequin – that, at least, would have been ironic.

Safe to say, I’m glad the exhibition is over. The embarrassment can now end.

Sincerely,
Representative for the innocent victims

P.S. What a half-arsed effort on your part. For shame!
P.P.S. THAT Lulu Guinness bag? Oh, come on. There’s a limit to hackneyed garbage.