Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A

Last week I took myself off to the V&A for the morning. I really wanted to go and see the Winnie the Pooh exhibition but unfortunately tickets had sold out for the day. My second choice was Ocean Liners which had just opened. I bought myself a ticket, with a hefty discount, thanks to my National Art Pass, and went right in.

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A

I love visiting the V&A. They have some amazing exhibitions and I was really looking forward to seeing Ocean Liners. We went on a cruise a few years ago and it definitely felt like being in another world.

Experience a unique journey through the design stories of the world’s greatest ocean liners, including the Titanic, Normandie, the Queen Mary and the Canberra, and find out how these impressive vessels helped shape the modern world. The exhibition spans the 1840s to the 1960s and includes items from the V&A collections as well as material on loan from institutions around the world.

The first room was amazing with a huge model of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth along with colourful ribbons hanging from the ceiling and beautiful posters advertising exotic destinations on one wall – the start of your journey. The next few rooms were full of furniture, ship interiors and art designed for some of the most famous liners – giving a glimpse into the luxury of life on board. Everything was stunning and I found it a little surprising what had survived. As I progressed through the exhibition I saw ship designs and models, photographs, film and paintings of interiors as well as the more social side of life on board.

My favourite part of the exhibition was the final section about life on deck. There were eye-catching displays of some clothes worn by guests alongside stories of the ridiculous amount of suitcases which the Duke of Windsor took with him on one journey. I loved the way the room has been transformed with a sparkling night sky to illustrate the glamour (for some!) of life on board. The swimming pool looked amazing with models showing the latest swimwear fashions, or walking down the “grande descente” in their finest clothes.

As you would expect there were cases devoted to the more mundane dinner services, a small section on children onboard, and I loved the wicker bed which had been made to fit round a tricky part of the liner. There was a lot to see and I was very pleased to be on my own without the children. I think they would have loved the exhibition but it was so nice to be able to read all the captions.

The exhibition ended by bringing the liner into the ‘modern’ day. Cruising has been re-invented yet again, as we found when we went on one. I don’t think of the cruise ship today as being part of a ‘classic’ design. I disliked all the glitz and sparkle of the ship we went on so was pleased the exhibition ended in the 1960’s. I didn’t think that the British design of some items compared well to that of France or Germany and it was really interesting to see them in the same context.

The exhibition ended with a film montage, which seems very popular in exhibition design. I was happy to sit and watch clips of famous films featuring liners, including Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953),The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Brideshead Revisited (1981), Titanic (1997), and The Legend of 1900 (1998).

I really loved this exhibition. It was expensive but there were some stunning objects gathered from around the world which illustrated the history of the liners beautifully. It was full of amazing objects which all had a story to tell. The one that sent tingles down my spine was the fragment of an overdoor panel from the first-class lounge on the Titanic. It marks where the Titanic broke in half on the 14th April 1912 and this was the first time the panel has been on display in Europe since the Ttianic left Southampton 4 days earlier.

Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A and open until Sunday 17th June.