Hollywood Costume Exhibtion at the V&A

 

Yesterday the Hollywood Costume Exhibition opened at the V&A and I was lucky enough to go and visit it! It was a fantastic exhibition with some inspiring costumes. My dream job is to become a costume designer for Theatre and ballets so I have been looking forward to this exhibition for a very long time! Pictures aren't allowed at this exhibition and I didn't want to risk being kicked out for taking a sneaky snap, so the pictures are from google.

So what can you expect from the exhibition? Three rooms full of famous costumes with a range of contemporary and historical designs, apparently designers find contemporary costumes harder because people watching the films know how to dress and the most successful ones are the ones that completely disappear and the audience don't even notice. Quite the contrary to the historical designs, which are elaborate and need a great focus on detail. The wrong costume can completely ruin the plot, and the right costume can make the storyline authentic and help the viewer to believe it.

The two most famous items in this exhibition are kept to the very end they are Marilyn Monroe’s famous dress and Dorothy’s red slippers. Yet before you get there you will get to see Audrey Hepburn’s 'Breakfast at Tiffanys' LBD, Johnny Depps ' Pirates of the Caribbean' costume and Marlene Dietrich androgynous suit worn in ' Morocco'. The only disappointing thing was the layout of the exhibition with some of the costumes being put behind each other and places which were hard to see them.

Although I thoroughly recommend this exhibition and I learnt some really interesting facts about designing for costume and I will be going back.