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Monday Amusements 8

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Hello! Remember me? I hope you do so, and fondly, because this blog is coming back to life in a big way. I’ve got a lovely spreadsheet schedule sorted out, and one of the first steps I’m taking is to bring back my Monday Amusements posts. I’ll be posting Monday Amusements here every other week, starting today, and doing the same (but reading and writing themed) on this fleeting dream, which I started last week. Therefore you can expect my next Monday Amusements post here on the 27th May. Coincidently, this Monday Amusements post and my last Monday Amusements post on this fleeting dream have the same number, which I think is quite nice.

Just as I have on this fleeting dream, I am going to try to credit my sources when I didn’t just find a post or article myself via RSS feed, website e-mail newsletter, ‘surfing the web’ (as I believe the kids called it in 1998, I should know, I was one) or the publisher’s twitter. Previously, I’d just bookmark the piece and by the time I got around to putting my Monday Amusements post together, I’d have forgotten how I discovered it. From now on I will bookmark the relevant tweet or Facebook post instead, so that you can find and follow interesting people too!

One thing I’m going to stop is sorting the links into categories, as I did with the original posts. I’ll still group them into paragraphs where it is appropriate, but I found that my attempts to stick rigidly to one template for all the posts failed, because I go through different phases (or obsessions, if you will, haha). For example, while some weeks I’ll want to share loads of craft tutorials, other times I won’t have bookmarked any new ones, so having a ‘Craft’ section doesn’t work, and it’s the same for almost every other section I was using. Except for ‘cute’. I can always manage to find something adorable.

Any feedback on this would be much appreciated, so do leave a comment. I’d also love to know which links you find the most interesting, as that will help me decide what to include in future. Now, on with the links! 

The Beauty Milk has a feature that I really enjoy, and kind of wish I’d thought of first, called Try It Out Thursday. The most recent post in this series is about using tape to help create blunt-edged winged eyeliner looks. I am definitely going to try it out, although I’m quite happy with my eyeliner technique at the moment.  I usually blend my eyeshadow out and then draw my eyeliner on top, so the eyeshadow goes out past the wing, and I want to find out what it looks like when the wing marks the edge of my eye make-up. I’m not sure it’ll work because the natural brown colour of my eyelids extends past the edge of my preferred wing position, and I usually use eyeshadow to cover it up, but I could try covering it with concealer or powder afterwards instead.

On a similar note, if you’re attracted to coloured eyeliner but are not sure how to wear it, Anitacska at Pleasureflush has three different ideas. Three is the magic number this week, as Robyn shows us how wearing a different lipstick can alter the overall effect of a make-up look, at Stay Beautiful. And on the subject of ‘different’ lipstick (I’ve got to stop these corny segues), Leanne at Do Not Refreeze reviews Illamasqua ESP, a surprisingly wearable purple lipstick. As I wrote in the comments, with the Boost lipgloss it reminds me of Lush’s Passionate lipstick, a bright pink with a blue/purple duochrome effect, as well as the ancient Rimmel purple lipstick that I mentioned here.

As you may know from my tweets, I am currently obsessed with dyeing – more on this in an upcoming post.
I don’t have any shoes at the moment that are suitable, but I will definitely revisit the Dreams that Glitter tutorial on DIY Ombre Dip-Dye Shoes.

It’s finally starting to feel more like Spring here in the UK, after about six months of alternating rain, snow, and freezing cold weather, but I like to be prepared, and Owl Girl‘s post How to dress on windy days! is really useful.

My favourite area of study at university was cultural studies, so I love reading posts that explore the social and political implications of self-presentation, such as this post about beauty/fashion ‘rules’ and stigma, from The Beheld. I also enjoy fashion history, and I wanted to visit the ‘BIBA and Beyond’ exhibition at Brighton Museum and Art Gallery, but never got around to it. It’s finished now, so I’ll have to settle for revisiting this review at Lipglossiping. I love that purple patterned dress with the bell sleeves and the lilac halter-tutu dress in the photo below it. I also enjoyed Victorian Aristo Tattoo Crew on the pamflet blog, and Stylist‘s 50 Style Icons of the 1920s – a decade I love reading about in books, as frequently mentioned on my other blog.

Finally, some cape eye candy from The Cherry Blossom Girl, and the traditional ‘cute’ inclusion, with a not-so-traditional animal: Snake as hair scrunchie.

Valentino: Master of Couture, at Somerset House

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Valentino: Master of Couture is a temporary exhibition at London’s Somerset House, celebrating the career of Valentino and including 137 haute couture designs in its impressive main display.

After paying for your ticket and collecting your accompanying booklet, you proceed into a room containing a giant lightbox, onto which is projected some pictures and a quote either about or from Valentino. I have forgotten which. It looks good, and I certainly felt impressed when I entered the exhibition, but the size of the introductory room felt excessive compared to the rest of the exhibition.

Walking through the doorway to the second room, the first thing I noticed was the giant rose on the opposite wall, and the timelines on the two adjacent walls, which show important points in Valentino’s career. Below these, around three edges of the room, are cabinets that look as if they have chairs behind them, like desks. The first cabinet I looked at contained original sketches by Valentino. I don’t know if any of the outfits in the sketches were on display in the catwalk, because I don’t have a photographic memory. If so, I think they would have had more value if they were presented beside the dresses, but there is nothing to stop you leaving the catwalk and going downstairs to look in the cabinets again, if you chose to do so.

The second cabinet contained photos of solo models and celebrities, some wearing Valentino, some posing with the man himself. I wasn’t sure what the point of the photos of celebrities with Valentino was, and would have liked to see more photos of the outfits from the exhibition being worn. The third cabinet contained a mixture of letters, faxes, and telegrams that Valentino had received from various other well-known figures in the fashion industry, royalty, and other celebrities, congratulating him on his anniversary. There were also some copies of invitations to the celebrations and shows. Honestly, I thought this section was quite pointless. The invitations from Valentino were interesting from a graphic design standpoint, but I didn’t think that the notes from celebrities added anything. Is anybody going to see this exhibition without knowing that Valentino is a celebrated designer? Do we really need to be shown an array of evidence?

After viewing the cabinets, you turn to the fourth wall, the one with the doorways through which you walked earlier, and go up the stairs, to the catwalk, or perhaps reverse catwalk, because the visitors walk down the centre, with the dresses on either side. It’s a nice idea, and the clothes are displayed beautifully, but I couldn’t help thinking that if the dresses had been in the centre, I would have been able see to them from both sides. Sometimes the description of a dress would mention details that we couldn’t actually see because the mannequin was sitting or otherwise turned so that we couldn’t see it properly. Most of the dresses were facing forward, some were backwards if that side was particularly beautiful but I would have liked to have had a 360-degree view of every dress. Well-placed mirrors in the catwalk section would have been excellent!

Minor niggles, but there are a lot of dresses on display in this room, and in that respect it’s good value for money, but compared to the first room, the catwalk seemed quite cramped. Some visitors were drawing or taking notes and I had to wait for them to finish before I could get a proper look at the dress. Also, we found ourselves having to switch sides or flick forward and back in the booklet to find each dress’s description, they weren’t very well aligned. The V&A’s Ballgowns exhibition is displayed less creatively, but at least you can walk at least three quarters of the way around the majority of the most spectacular dresses, although due to space some of them are only displayed front-on.

Faults in display aside, the dresses and other outfits on display are beautiful works of art, and the mannequins are colour coded by date so that you can see with a glance at your exhibition booklet when the clothes were made. Most of the clothes have a timeless elegance and even those that have details that mark them out as being ‘of’ a particular decade look fresh and interesting.

Down the stairs at the other end, and we found ourselves in a room with the wedding dress worn by Princess Marie Chantal of Greece. The wedding dress is impressive (though not my taste) but it is the only thing in the room, so most visitors seemed to walk around it briefly then carry on.

The exhibition concludes with a room in which display cabinets and screens are arranged in a rectangle. Here we can see small pieces of detail work, and videos of techniques used by the couturiers. I was actually quite impressed by this area, and there were a fairly large number of visitors watching the videos and taking notes. The exhibition booklet contains a glossary explaining terms, which was quite useful when in the catwalk area, and it was interesting to see Valentino’s unique techniques close-up.

Finally, of course, the gift shop. You know I love a good museum gift shop and I do like the Somerset House book shop, but the Valentino pop-up shop was quite limited. There are some designer scarves and bags for sale as well as the exhibition book, which isn’t really about the dresses in the exhibition, being a behind-the-scenes look at the career and workshops of Valentino.

If you are a Valentino fan, or are interested in couture techniques, you’ll probably enjoy this exhibition. If you’re just interested in looking at pretty dresses, visit if you can, however, you might find it a bit expensive at £12.50 for a full-price ticket, or £9 concessions, especially considering the flaws in the display. Groupon have had a few deals on recently for half price tickets, so it is worth checking there.

While I was at Somerset House, I was also lucky enough to see the Tim Walker: Story Teller exhibition before it closed, which was free (and more fun…shh!). Make sure you find out what other displays and exhibitions are on if you plan to visit, so that you can get the most out of your time.

Valentino: Master of Couture opened on the 29th November 2012 and will close on the 3rd March 2013.