Saturday 25 July 2009

Taxidermy tigers, cupcakes and summer fetes

I often don't post about my 'real' life as I don't actually think I'm that exciting so you will either love this rambling or skip past it :)
Either is cool...haha.

The V&A has been celebrating the tenth anniversary of their 'village fete'. Myself and my friend knew that the 'family crowd' would all be attending with it being a Saturday, so we tried to be crafty and turn up early. Naturally half the tube line was shut down or 'under repair work' (seriously are the lines EVER all open?!), which caused us to roll up half an hour after we planned. Luckily they had pushed back the opening time from 12.30 to 1. The bad news: the queues. To say they were long would be an understatement. A BIG one.



After we queued for our ticket, re-queued because my stamp managed to wash off and then queued the length of the museum again we finally got into the courtyard area. You had to take your hat off to them, the companies in charge of each of the individual stalls really went to town. Highlights included:

'Quick Draw Saloon', the fastest person to draw the picture won. This guy was obviously loving having his picture taken...haha



Life sized cardboard piano.



Tatty Devine hook-a-goldfish. There was a guy reallly trying to win a goldfish ring while we were there...whatever floats your boat haha. Not that many people seemed to be winning the rings but you could also win a heart lollipop which was pretty cool.



Knitted cakes.



Lady Luck giant cat tiddlywinks.



Bee outfits. So cute!!



Remote control crufts.



You could trade a 'confession' on a sheet of paper for a badge. I hooked myself up with a 'ooops a daisy'.



We also went into the exhibition 'Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in contemporary design'. They didn't allow photos, but the first section of the exhibition was definitely the best. The exhibition was divided into 3 sections: 'The Forest Glade', 'The Enchanted castle' and 'Heaven and Hell'. There was a lot of really amazing interpretations of everyday objects such as radiators and wardrobes in a surreal and unusual ways. My personal favourite was the chairs, one of which really reminded me of the paper catwalk at Chanel a few seasons back. If you can't get to the exhibition you can view a lot of the pieces here.

After a cheeky stop of to hummingbird (I tried the brownies- SO good!) we went to seek out the showSTUDIO shop that has just opened over at Bruton Place. On the way we came across some really amazing window displays. Neon trench coats?! There was also heart shaped door handles that were cut off the photo.



The shop was down a relatively normal looking side street. Oh yeah, apart from there was glitter EVERYWHERE. Like seriously. The pavement was plastered in the stuff.



But back to SHOWstudio. In case you didn't know, SHOWstudio is a company 'spearheaded' by Nick Knight that works with names within the industry with their imagery, particularly invovling moving images and film. Their shop has opened to sell some of the props that have been involved in their past work, such as fashion photography. As a big Tim Walker fan I wanted to see the props created by Shona Heath, Walker's main collaborater on the elaborate sets he works with. As SHOWstudio is such a high profile name within the industry I expected the shop to be very strict on photographs and to have that tense atmosphere you can often find in places such as that. However it was completely the opposite! Not only were we able to take as many photos as we liked but the woman in the shop was really friendly and told us all about the props ( apparantly the tiger is the most popular!).

Kate Moss' lip print.



Becky photographing the cherries.



John Galliano flag.





I look really scared, haha. I have a fear of taxidermy things and waxworks and the Tiger was creeping me out thus I am stood as far away from it as possible...haha. The bulbs on the dollar sign were so hot as well! I was slowly getting cooked from behind, not a good look.
Afterwards we stopped by the Marc by Marc Jacobs shop where there was more window display amazingness. The flag is made entirely from flowers! The other side on the interior is an American flag. Something for everyone? haha.

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