I’ve been to a lot of museums in my day, but the Victoria and Albert Museum was the first museum I actually got lost in while trying to find the exit. I underestimated the size of the museum and watched the halls all grow longer with artifacts, costumes, and paintings from all different kinds of places. My favorite artifacts I saw today were made possible by revolutionary women and I thought that was pretty neat.
The first object that caught my attention was a party dress from around 1959 made by Mary Quant. The goal of this fashion line was to push the boundaries of what women could wear “outside the home.” This bizarre boutique became extremely popular in London in the sixties and even led to the rising popularity of the miniskirt. To really emphasize the bizarre aspect of this fashion line, the mannequin in the dress is carrying a leash attached to a pet lobster. This combination of beautiful and bizarre strangely reminded me of Operation Mincemeat. In that show, there was a storyline about the woman on the team wanting to be respected the same as the men. It was a real moment of feminism in an otherwise wacky show.
The rest of the museum was also very interesting, but after I got through most of the exhibits I noticed that I could also go into the Natural History Museum right next door for free! I looked down at my dinosaur shirt and then back up at the stegosaurus skeleton in the main lobby with immense joy. It was at this museum that the second object caught my attention. There was a giant fossil of the first plesiosaur ever discovered on the wall with a plaque about the scientist who discovered it. Paleontology is often a male-dominated field, but in this case, the scientist who made this incredible discovery was Mary Anning. Although she was excluded from being a member of the scientific societies where her work was published, her fossils are some of the most studied and appreciated in the community. Dino Dan has nothing on Mary Anning!
I am sad to say that this is my last blog post in London as we are traveling to Stratford for the last few days. However, the journey isn’t over yet!
Cheers!
Theatre in London U of A 