The V&A: A Museum of Ecentricity

Today was finally a "free" day, with no class readings or projects. My friends and I decided to head over to the V&A or the Victoria and Albert Museum, one of our many required areas we have to visit. The first room we entered featured sculptures of naked or scantily clad sculptures, and that should have been a sign to the strangeness of the museum! As we walked along, we found the fashion section, the part I had been most looking forward to and what the V&A is known for.

As most of you know, I love studying fashion throughout the centuries and this exhibit showed a sampling of all different time periods, even futuristic! Of course, I spent most of my time drooling over silk brocade gowns from the 1700s. After spending much time in there, we figured out our next point of destination: the jewelry section. If you haven't noticed already, my friends and I were having a very "girly" day at the museum, we just couldn't help it!

The jewelry section by far has been the most extensive collection of all sorts of jewelry I have ever seen. From funerary rings to headdresses to a ring watch from the early 1800s, everything was so amazing! Today I was coveting many things and I felt like that was alright for once, a girl can dream can't she?

Then there were various other sections, from the iron exhibit that included many different types of iron railings, fencing, etc to silverware and a large collection of snuffboxes! One of the best exhibits besides the jewelry and the fashion was the Theatre collection. They had anything from huge, elaborate costumes to miniature set designs.

At the end of our time there all of us agreed that it was by far the best museum we had been to, even after the British Museum and the National Gallery. It showed such an extensive collection of all sorts of everyday objects and I found them easier to relate to, rather than just looking at jewelry from Kings and Queens or ancient Egyptian artifacts. This museum is definitely worth your while!