The V&A Has A Bedding Section

'At the End of the Day’, hanging, Natasha Kerr, 2007

On Monday CocoThom were on location in London. We decided to hit the V&A Museum. We went thinking that the Grace Kelly exhibition was on, but it wasn't, it starts on the 17th of April to 26 September 2010. So we'll be making another stop for that, but in the mean time, we thought to check out what "fashiony" thing the V&A had on. Emily then suggested that we should go to the QUILT exhibition. Much to my surprise she was serious. You can find out information about dates and prices as they do vary at: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/quilts-1700-2010/.

So this is what I thought about the exhibition. I found it really humorous, nothing to do with the quilts, just me being there, because it is all about QUILTS. I would never have went of my accord. It was a good experience, even though I was acting like a kid at some points. Like dissing some of the work that I didn't like, mainly saying "I don't like the thing in the middle", which funny enough, would be the main focal point, but I was just being truthful, also I wasn't just saying all these things to myself, I was saying them to Emily. However getting past all of that, it was good. Intense, intricate and skillful are only a few words that can describe the workmanship that went into making these quilts. I was more impressed with the older quilts, the earliest being from the 1700's, which amazes me alone, to be beautiful and intact. Some of the modern one's didn't interest me at all, as I thought they were trying to be art pieces first, rather than a quilt, which then in itself is a work of art.

There was a number of ways in which the quilts were displayed. Some as wall hangings, some on beds, some with audio, one even had a video accompanying it, which was amusing to me. This particular quilt was made by the hands of prisoners, from blah blah blah prison (don't need to go into details). It was a well constructed, highly detailed quilt. You would really need to know your stuff, to be doing the type of stitches that were seen on this quilt. I don't know why the audio was there, it really freaked me out, I was slightly confused, to why someone was talking about nothing, because they weren't talking quilts anyway. I felt it wasn't needed, I also felt that the person on the audio, was having a private conversation and I shouldn't be listening.

Something happened that was quite funny. There was this random painting on the wall, amongst the hanging quilts. When we ere walking round, Emily started looking at the painting, I came up right behind her and said "NO DON'T LOOK AT THAT, YOU DIDN'T PAY TO SEE THAT". We both chuckled as we walked.




Set of Chintz bed hangings (detail), 1730-50


I do recommend it to all quilt lovers and to people who have an appreciation for delicate, intricate, crazy needle-work skills I wished I had. Even though I was skeptical about this exhibition at first, because I thought it was going to be boring, I did make my own fun, but I did secretly enjoy it, for all the wrong reasons.


Coco

Karl 'n Paris

Back to Paris. One absolutely freezing day, we were doing some touristy stuff, but at the same time trying not to look touristy. Later in the afternoon, we were on a mission to find Colette. We were not that successful, we even resulted to using our infamous tour guide. FOUND COLETTE... Across the road from Colette, staring quite intently in the general direction of the boutique, all of us think why is there such a hustle and bustle outside the shop? So we cross the road, get close to the door, I'm standing at the back of my friends. I see some of them get pushed back.. Paparazzi everywhere, screaming Paris, Paris.. I was like why are they shouting where we're at. But I was mistaken it was only Paris Hilton. Yeah so we were trying to walk in the door and she was walking out. Really manic.





The more important part to this post is, when we got back from Premier Vision. We got back to our hotel. I needed to go to the Chanel store, I was on the hunt for some particular Chanel items. So my friends came along with me to the main Chanel store at 31 Rue Cambon, as I wasn't able to get what I was looking for in any of the other stores. When we were finished we went outside, as you do, when you want to leave some place, mind you I would never want to leave 31 Rue Cambon. I will be living above there soon. So we cross the road, as I wanted to have a good look at the fashion house. It was so pretty. We all stood there in a line next to one another. We were all looking in different directions around the place. We stood near this really manky Hummer H2, we were like I bet you the person who owns this jeep is in the Chanel store. I clocked a glass door, one of which wasn't for the store. I then just heard a door buzzer, I focus in on the door, which started to open. Out came KARL LAGERFELD, with some other people. He was walking towards the manky Hummer. He started to get into the manky Hummer, aaahhhh the manky Hummer was his. But lets forget about the Hummer. We were standing about 2 metres from him. He is one of my favourite designers and an idol of mine. Totally mesmerized, we were scared to say or do anything, even though we do regret this, but it was enough to see him. We were in shock for quite some time. When his car started to pull away, we got all giggly and I was like not in front of the shop, over there, over there, away from the shop windows and out of sight of any Chanel employees. We did not want to be dissed for what we did next, like a bunch of fan girls, standing in this perfect formation, we screamed, jumped and done a lot of OMG-ing, like the social networking whores that we are, we got out our phones and let friends, family and the Internet know what had just happened. It was much like a scene out of Gossip Girl, without any bitching, sleeping with friends and carrying a sewing machine around the streets, Miss Jenny Humphrey (Little J).



Coco