The stunning iconic Frida Kahlo show at the V&A Museum, Frida Kahlo – Making Herself Up opens on June 16th and runs till November 4th 2018.
The show has an emphasis on how Frida fashioned her identity against the struggle she had with bad health due to Polio in her childhood and a devastating near fatal bus crash when she was just 18 years old which weakened her spine for ever.
One of the most recognised and significant artists of the 20th Century this is the first exhibition outside Mexico to display her clothes and intimate possessions which had been sealed after her death in 1954 in her family home known as The Blue House by her husband Diego Riviera.
Finally opened up in 2004, this exhibition shows personal letter, medicine bottles, cosmetics, the corsets she was forced to wear after the terrible crash and jewellery, much of which she strung together from Pre-Columbian beads herself but most of all a startling display of outfits that most of us have only ever glimpsed in the many black and white photographs of Frida or in her own self portraits.
The Mexico of her youth flourished in the 1920’s and 30’s after the Mexican revolution and attracted many foreign artists, writers, photographers and film makers. Included in the exhibition are photographs by Edward Weston and Tina Modotti taken in the 1920’s that changed the perception of Mexico abroad.
Frida’s enthusiastic adoption of traditional dress was a desire to embrace the national identity even changing her birthdate from 1907 to 1910 to coincide with the year of the revolution. This lifetime embrace of the traditional dress as well as her unconventional life led to such a strong identity you could almost say she was one of the first personalities to become a brand in her own right against all the odds. Alongside the Mexican clothing items she also mix and matched with clothing from Guatemala, China, Europe and the USA making an eclectic personal style.
A million fashion shoots have been shot as an homage to her image and here it is a revelation to see her actual garments and possessions in real life as well as appreciate her strength and feminist approach in adversity.
Frida Kahlo – Making herself up at the V&A Museum was sponsored by Grosvenor Britain and Ireland, Aeromexico, Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne and GRoW @Annenberg.
Self portrait of iconic Frida Kahlo from 1933 when she and Diego riviera were living in the US shows her unconventional appearance for the time.
As Frida got older her health deteriorated and by the 1940’s she was wearing corsets to support her spine most of the time similar to this
Vintage cosmetic items owned by Frida Kahlo were discovered in a sealed bathroom in her old family home in 2004
Plaster cast were modelled directly on Frida’s body, she wore them for weeks at a time and kept them afterwards perhaps because she decorated them
There is a good selection of Frida Kahlo’s striking jewellery
Typical Frida Kahlo outfits include rebozos a traditional Mexican shawl
Mexican long skirts with flounces are known as enaguas and holanes
Tabard square tops are known as huipiles, from Frida Kahlo – Making Herself Up at the V&A Museum till November
Photos and post copyright Smudgetikka – no reproduction without permission 2009-2018