We went to the Fashion and Textile Museum to see the Knitwear, Chanel to Westwood exhibition.
Sadly there was no photography allowed but it was very interesting - I especially liked the hand knits from war time, and also the knits from the 80s which were very similar to garments both of us had either knitted or worn! It really is worth a visit, and the 1pm talk (on Wednesdays and Fridays) is very interesting.
On route to the museum we walked past the Tower Poppies. I'd seen them in August when they first started installing them but they now almost fill the moat and are a very very moving sight with each poppy representing one of the 888, 246 British casualties of the 1st World War.
Our final stop for the day involved a walk down Whitehall in the rain to the National Portrait Gallery to see the Grayson Perry 'Who Are You' exhibition. There are 14 new portraits by Grayson, some individual, some group, focusing on identity.
to silk hijabs
to ceramic pots
and tapestries.
They are all thought provoking and several conversations were had with random strangers as we stood looking at them.
The memory jar, focusing on a couple where the man was suffering from Alzheimer's was the most thought provoking for me. We stood and looked at it for ages, the shards of photos representing the shards of memories, snippets sometimes remembered and sometimes dissected from the main memory.
These, and all the others, have all been/are about to be features in the channel 4 programme of the same name. I loved how they were placed in different rooms within the gallery, next to traditional portraits of famous people.
Grayson's self portrait, the Map of Days, is so detailed and intricate I could have looked at it for hours - you can download the PDF of it from here and watch a video of the man himself talking about it as well.
It was a lovely day, we hardly noticed the rain we were having such a good time!
