Kimono Exhibition, V&A Dundee – part 3

Posted on 1 January 2025 by Katrina

This is the last of the Kimono Exhibition photos that I took last week at the V&A Dundee.

Kimonos have been used by film costume designers, such as the one Alec Guinness wore in Star Wars. These are by various modern designers.

The white/cream kimono in the photo below is a bridal kimono. The bride starts out the day in this colour and by the time the ceremony is performed she is in a red kimono like the one in the photo.

The kimonos below are by fashion designers who have updated the traditional kimono designs. Kimonos have been used for stage wear by musicians. David Bowie famously wore what was regarded as a kimono but was really more akin to a Chinese tunic I think.

Lastly the kimono in the photo below was a gift to a member of British royalty in the 1960s.

I doubt if this was ever worn by royalty but the one below was. Rock royalty anyway. It belonged to Freddie Mercury. He was fond of kimonos for stage and party wear.

Kimono Exhibition at the V&A Dundee – part 2

Posted on 31 December 2024 by Katrina

Back to the V&A Dundee Kimono Exhibition and as you can see from the two photos below they also had some kimonos being shown on models so that you could see how they would have been worn back in the day.

You can see the roll of padding at the hemline which would have weighted the fabric down and make it hang better. Sadly it wasn’t possible to avoid reflections.

Kimonos were still popular in Japan in the 1930s, the kimono below from 1930 has a very modern design.

They are a lot gaudier than the traditional kimonos, the one in the middle below definitely has a Charles Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow Rose vibe about it.

In the 1930s things were getting more European in design. The small kimono for a young boy features an aeroplane which says kamikaze on it.

As you can see from the designs on the kimonos below dating from 1938 the Japanese had their minds firmly set on getting ready for war with warships and aeroplanes popular motifs on kimonos.

There might be a part three to this Kimono Exhibition as I took quite a few photos of the contemporary kimonos which have been designed by well known fashion designers more recently. But that’s enough for now.

Kimono Exhibition at the V&A Dundee

Posted on 29 December 2024 by Katrina

We had been meaning to go to see Kimono at the V&A in Dundee since it opened way back in May but ‘stuff’ just got in the way. I was a bit shocked when I discovered that the exhibition closes on the 5th of January, so we had to just make time for it, or miss it completely. So we went there yesterday – unfortunately we weren’t the only people who had almost missed it, it was very busy! But I managed to take quite a lot of photos while there, it was much bigger than I had expected and there were a lot of details to pore over as well as information cards to read. We were there for quite a long time. I’m just putting a few photos on here just now. I’ll leave the rest for the new year.

Below is a photo of pieces of fabric which make up a kimono. It’s all straight edges so should be very simple to put together.

Although they’re made out of silk these ones below must be from top quality heavy silk as some of them date from around the 1700s, they’re amazing survivors.

The grey kimono below was made for a young woman. It looks deceptively simple but does have embroidery and texture woven into the fabric.

The portrait below is of Elizabeth Smith, wife of publisher George Murray Smith. She added some embelishments to it, such as buttons and fasteners. The portrait is right next to the actual garment which is below.

Below is a close up of the beautiful embroidery. All things Japanese were incredibly fashionable for quite a number of years in Victorian times. I can well understand the attraction. I’m sure they would be very comfortable, especially when compared with what European women were expected to wear at the time.

The exhibition at the V&A in Dundee is only on until January 5th, 2025 so there are only a few days left to see it, and I suppose the V&A will be closed on the 1st and 2nd of January. I’m glad that we managed to see it after putting it off for so long.

Marian Clayden Exhibition at Drum Castle

Posted on 21 February 2020 by Katrina

It can be quite surprising what you see when you visit castles in Scotland. When we went to Drum Castle in Aberdeenshire – I have to say a couple of years ago now, I didn’t expect to see an exhibition of textiles and clothes by Marian Clayden who I hadn’t heard of before but is very well known in her field of textiles and weaving. You can see my earlier posts on Drum Castle here.

The photos really don’t do her work justice as you can’t see the textures so well. The fabric is mainly silk and velvet, absolutely sumptuous looking.

Marian Clayden was born in Preston, Lancashire which had a thriving textile industry back in the day, so her family was involved in various crafts, but I think we can safely say that Marian picked up that baton and ran with it. You can read about her life here.

She trained as a teacher but after having a couple of kids and being stuck at home she decided to try dyeing some textiles in her kitchen, using skills she had learned in her teacher training. Moving to San Francisco in 1967 must have influenced her hugely – with all of those flower power people and bright colours around the place.

Her career took off and there were exhibitions of her work all over the world. Sadly she died in 2015 but her work lives on in major collections all over the world in places such as the V&A in London and the Metropolitan in New York. We were just incredibly lucky to stumble across this exhibition in a Scottish Castle.

Porter magazine and emaciated models

Posted on 5 March 2016 by Katrina

A wee while ago I signed one of those Change.org petitions in support of models who are being asked to starve themselves in the hope of being given a modelling job. I believe the petition was started by a young woman who was told that she wasn’t thin enough at size 8 (UK) they wanted her right down to the bone.

Every now and again I get updates as to how the petition is doing and about MPs and such who have taken an interest in the subject. I had been under the impression that the fashion industry was beginning to be a bit more responsible and humane. So it was with a huge shock and revulsion that I noticed the current issue of the fashion magazine Porter, while I was standing at a supermarket check out. It’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve seen healthier looking people on their death beds. The actual magazine cover looks worse than it does in the image below, the model’s skin is grey and she looks totally emaciated, she looks like she is too weak to focus her eyes, I believe the look used to be called heroin chic, but I just had a huge urge to track the model down and try to talk some sense into her, no career is worth looking like a concentration camp victim. I hope that for some odd reason she has had a horrific make-up job done on her.

Porter magazine

I believe that Porter is a fairly new glossy magazine and it prides itself on being – the fashion magazine for the stylish, intelligent woman of now.

So it seems bizarre that such an unattractive image was chosen for the front cover. I’ve had a look back at some previous covers and there has been nothing as bad as the one above, in fact the models are usually quite attractive and healthy looking. Hopefully this cover is just an aberration, or maybe it’s two fingers up to the people who are trying to get model agencies to change their evil ways.

I really think that it’s about time that magazine distributors told editors that they will not deal with covers that show stick thin models who look like death. Supermarkets shouldn’t be putting such images in front of their customers either. If I had a young daughter I’d hate her to think that that was a look she should emulate.

Susie Orbach said that – fat was a feminist issue, surely thin is too!

A Walk in Balbirnie

Posted on 5 February 2016 by Katrina

I’ve been avoiding the woodland near our house for a while now as the rain has made the ground so boggy, and the snow and ice didn’t last long at all, so it was too horrible underfoot to walk there. And of course we’ve had horrendously high winds which makes woodland walks scary, quite a few trees have fallen over or branches have been ripped off them.

But recently we bought new footwear, purple wellies for me, and Jack opted for shorter welly like boots – he complained that his old traditional wellies wore the hairs off his legs and nearly 40 years later he still has bald patches. I said that he should patent wellies as an alternative to leg waxing, they would be much cheaper I’m sure! I’m keeping the receipt for my purple wellies as the last pair of multicoloured ones I bought split after only around five outings in them, so if that happens again they’re going back to the shop.

This time as you can see we walked in a different direction along the side of the burn which is presumably what made people settle in this area as long as 5,000 years ago. You can see their graves in an old blogpost here.

Speaking of wearing purple,
Jenny Joseph wrote the poem Warning – about planning to grow old disreputably and just not caring what anybody thinks of you. But if like me you were a teenager in the 1970s you’ve probably always worn purple – and orange, sometimes together. I’ve not started on the brandy yet though! This poem has a lot of fans and there is even a Red Hat Society now

Warning
by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph reads her poem below if you’re interested.

Knickers!

Posted on 6 March 2015 by Katrina

I was having a chat with a friend recently when the subject of knickers came up – or to be more precise it was the word ‘knickers’ because it seems that it’s a quintessentially British word and I must admit that I often use it when I’m mildly annoyed by something. Oh knickers, or Knickers to that or Don’t get your knickers in a twist – that’s Joan’s favourite.

I had an elderly friend who was quite obsessed by knickers and it was never long into any conversation with her before the word popped out. The word knickers somehow lightens a moment and brings a smile to many a face – don’t ask me why! The word underpants just doesn’t have the same panache and briefs sounds too legal.

Anyway, I was flicking through my copy of Modern Knitting Illustrated (1945) when I came across the above ladies who are modelling what was obviously the height of wartime fashion in Britain and would have been the sort of thing which my friend Marjorie was wearing at that time.

All I can say it no wonder that old parachutes were in such high demand for making into knickers because wearing those ones illustrated must have been akin to wearing a hair shirt. Parachute silk next to the skin must have been heaven compared with wool. They’re knitted in 2-ply wool and it would have been real wool, nothing like nylon or anything else man-made, and you know how much wool makes you itch!

I wish I could remember what it was I read recently which had a woman reminiscing about London during the war and saying that there was no getting away from it – London was smelly. No wonder as what with only being allowed one bath a week and the difficulty in getting clothes dry in our weather, I suspect that knickers were only washed once a week too!

Lady’s Companion October 2nd, 1926

Posted on 20 February 2013 by Katrina

I have a small collection of vintage magazines, mainly craft ones, but I have a copy of Lady’s Companion from 1926 which has the beginning of a special advice series. In this edition it’s Pitfalls for Engaged Girls. I thought it might be of interest to any mad young things who got engaged on Saint Valentine’s Day! You should be able to read it if you click on it to enlarge it.

Unfortunately this is the only one of these magazines which I have, and I really want to read the next one in the series which is titled Showing a Dislike for His Family. It sounds like a scream!!

The McManus Galleries, Dundee, Scotland

Posted on 3 October 2012 by Katrina

We visited the McManus Galleries in Dundee recently, to see the ten Leonardo da Vinci etchings which are on display there. They are part of the Royal Collection and are touring various galleries as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Some of them are tiny and I had to put my reading specs on to see the detail, but they’re beautiful, even in the very dim light which they are displayed in, for fear of them becoming damaged by bright light.

Unfortunately there is only one image available on their website and as you can see it’s of Leda. It’s a shame that they don’t put them all up on their site so that people who can’t get there can have a look too.

Another exhibition which is on there at the moment is Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography featuring photos from the 1920s up to the present day. It’s well worth going to see if you’re interested in fashion or photography. To me the black and white photos always seem much more stylish with their careful lighting and shadows. Unfortunately the only image on the website is one of Twiggy on a moped, but there are far better photos in the exhibition.

This is part of a travelling exhibition from the V&A – a bit of a taster I suppose because Dundee has been selected as the location for a new Victoria and Albert Museum, the only one outside London, and as you can imagine, Dundonians are thrilled by the idea of it. It just has to be built now! You can see what it will look like here. It looks very futuristic but I imagine it’ll eventually be loved, even by the people who originally hated the look of it. You certainly won’t be able to miss it.

Wedding Dress Tales

Posted on 15 May 2012 by Katrina

I was mooching around the PDSA (People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals) charity shop in Kirkcaldy last week, really just to have a look at the books which had been donated, you never know your luck. But I couldn’t help being struck by this long rack of wedding dresses, I just had to have a closer look.

Now I was never the sort of girl who dreamt of traipsing down the aisle in a big frock, I really had to have my arm twisted, I would have preferred a much quieter wedding and I didn’t buy a dress until less than a week before the wedding, it was cream, just in case you’re interested because I don’t like bright Daz white, it’s especially unflattering if you have pale skin and red hair as I do. But having got the dress, I must admit that I wouldn’t ever part with it. It’s living in a white plastic bag now because its box fell apart and I’ve been trailing it around various house moves over the last 36 odd years – very odd actually!

So I just had to ask the lady in the PDSA charity shop if the dresses had all been donated, and apparently they have been. If only they could speak, they would have some tales to tell I’m sure.

There are some absolute crackers of dresses there, if you happen to be looking for such a thing. Ranging from the 1960s right up to much more recent bridal fashions. There are a couple of lovely 1970s designs, similar to my own dress – think Victorian nightdress. A few of the 1980s designs were bought by a film company recently for use in a film

This one was my favourite, sort of champagne/pale cream coloured, with beautiful embroidered roses on the bodice and sleeves. I can only think that these dresses all belonged to women who ended up getting divorced and didn’t want any reminders of the day at all.

It’s very sad, but maybe things will work out better the next time they take a trip down that aisle. And for any potential brides looking for a bargain – get yourself down to the Kirkcaldy High Street branch of the PDSA. The dresses cost from between £35 and £50 and when you consider that I saw a new wedding dress on sale further along the High Street – just £675 – that was it half price too. It was a hideous thing which best resembled a ruched nylon net curtain. I’d definitely plump for a lovely second-hand dress, after all it’s recycling and if you’re at all bothered about that word second-hand – just call it vintage. And of course, you’re helping sick animals at the same time.

I was sorely tempted to start a wedding dress collection, people do collect them you know, then I remembered, I’m supposed to be decluttering!

Pining for the West

Meanderings about recipes, books, craft and more

Category Archives: Fashion