V&A Network

Marion Thring – First Female Guide-Lecturer at the V&A

By Nicholas Smith, Archivist. For the V&A Archive’s contribution to International Women’s Month, I have chosen to profile Marion Thring, the first full-time female guide-lecturer at the V&A. Today, approximately 65% of the V&A’s workforce is female. This was not always the case; in the early twentieth century, museum work was considered a predominantly masculine...
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Marion Thring, photograph published in the Daily Sketch (9 April 1935)

Tilda Swinton's dinner speech at the opening of David Bowie is

Dear Dave When I asked you if you wanted me to say anything here tonight You said 'Only three words, one of them testicular..' So i'll pass that on Here I am at surely the most eclectic of all the London branches of Bowie AnonymousAll the nicest possible freaks are here We're in the Victoria and Albert Museum preparing to rifle through your drawersIt's truly an amazing thing...
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Tilda Swinton at the opening of David Bowie is

Spring is here! Time to enjoy the V&A’s Garden

By James Sutton, Records and Archives Assistant, V&A Archive. The John Madejski Garden is an oasis in the centre of the Museum and now that Spring is here again we’ll be able to step out of the galleries and enjoy the courtyard garden to the full. The John Madejski Garden. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London The Quadrangle (as the Garden space was originally known) has always...
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The John Madejski Garden

Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s, 10 July 2013 - 16 February 2014

By Kate Bethune, assistant curator, Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s. This summer the V&A will host its first exhibition devoted to 1980s London fashion, 'Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s'. When I was first asked if I would like to be the assistant curator on the project, I obviously jumped at the opportunity, although I confess I too conjured up images in my...
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Dress, William Brown, 1980. Museum no. T.19-2012

Johns Hopkins University students visit the V&A Archive

By Nicholas Smith, Archivist. Last September Dr Earle Havens from Johns Hopkins University approached me about the V&A Archive hosting a group of eight undergraduate students as part of their Museums and Society Programme visit to London. The V&A Archive is visited regularly by individual researchers from overseas, who study our unique and irreplaceable documents for a range of academic...
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Johns Hopkins University students and their instructor, Earle Havens

Clothworkers': How to Move a National Collection

By William Newton, Collections Management Assistant, Clothworkers' Centre for Textiles and Fashion Study and Conservation There are many kinds of spaces within the Museum. There are the galleries, in which the public roam and (presumably) find themselves inspired. There’s the garden, where children can soak themselves and their guardians’ lunches with lovely cool water. There...
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Hooks and tapes are lovingly unpicked

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Hapus! (Happy St David’s Day!)

1 March marks St David’s day. So it’s time to wear your daffodils with pride and celebrate all things Welsh. Theatre costume, unknown maker, 1960s. Museum no. S.955 to B-1984 © Victoria and Albert Museum, London The V&A holds a large collection of items that hail from Cymru, including ceramics and 19th century photography. But if you delve a little deeper into Search the...
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Theatre costume, unknown maker, 1960s. Museum no. S.955 to B-1984
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The V&A Network is a blog for anyone interested in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

It is where we explore and share our ideas and our work and where you can discover more about what happens behind-the-scenes in the Museum.

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