praktikant: Kunglig Vintage

Pictures from Erik's and my trip to Stockholm on Saturday to see Kunglig Vintage at one of my favorite museums, Livrustkammaren.

Commentary to follow HERE, but probably not for a few days. Other stuff worth reading over there, though!

At one of my favorite little cafes, two seconds from the museum.

The museum inhabits the space under the castle in the middle of Stockholm; I can't tell exactly what it was used for, perhaps a carriage house? It's a dramatic and totally castle-y space, perfect for the first floor permanent installation of the clothing of Swedish monarchy from the last 500 years.

Smell! So many things to smell. Multimedia here in Sweden. And you can see quotations in the background to that effect, and with the subtle push about the excessive use of water in the creation and maintenance of clothing, which was a "red thread" throughout this exhibition.

"Jag ska ta femman!" ("I want number five")...visitors to costume exhibitions are the same the world over: the first reaction is "I want, I like, I hate..." I struggle with the idea of this as a strength or weakness. What do you think?

Black room. The rooms were arranged by color (or lack of it, as here), with a photographic backdrop, quotations, smells, and a small bit about fashion's impact on the environment, in all its stages. Really successful, I thought!

Almost all of the dresses belonged to four different queens or princesses of the twentieth century, and it was great to see such a range of sizes and styles. It was also refreshing to not hear so much about designers (except a bit about those which were Scandinavian) or about how rich and fabulous these women were (I don't even know if they were, past being royalty?), but to let the visual (and olfactory) factors shape the visitor's experience of the clothing. There was also the question of what the word "vintage" means, but again, much of it was left up to the visitor. Very exciting! Very Swedish.

Just like Gustav V, but not as tall.

Downstairs. Even the horses look good.

Knappar! These are contemporary with those that came from Vasa, although these are probably more expensive, and have a base of wood that is covered with thread. Many of the metal buttons found on Vasa are styled after examples such as these, in what is probably trickle-down seventeenth-century fashion.