V & A Vandering

Good morning! Today we're going on a tour of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

I love the V & A - it's the original box of delights. My favourite thing is to wander and see what catches my eye. There's always ( because of the never-ending refurbishment) something new and different to find - or perhaps that should be old and different.

Last week I started off in the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries. Lots of statuary.

Luckily, the Museum has big, dramatic spaces to fit all the saints and gods and fountainyurnyfont type things.

One gallery, representing the medieval church, was laid out - appropriately enough - like a church.

Smaller galleries explored themes in design and society. Well, I think they did - if I had a gripe it was that the you really had to look for the themes. This is a shame because I would have liked to understand the rationale behind the displays better.

In a nutshell, the Medieval and Renaissance look absolutely beautiful, but some of the spaces left me a wee bit cold. More context please! I noted that they had been designed by architects, rather than specialist exhibition designers ... it shows.

Yes, I am a nit-picker.

Moving on, the ironwork gallery hasn't been refurbished since about, oh, 1925, but I love it. Something about the randomness of the bits of railing, bench ends and other wrought-iron odds and ends hanging from the walls always appeals to me.

Another great thing about the V & A is views like this:

No idea what all of this is - some spares they had lying around? - love it anyway.

Onwards into the Sculpture Gallery where you can trace the process of making sculpture. The whole thing is well worth a look, but I only had eyes for these boys:

Through the Leighton Gallery, down some stairs and into the Jameel Gallery of Islamic art. This gallery always makes me feel cold - maybe it's the choice of paint? The star of the show is the huge carpet in the middle which is only lit for a few minutes every hour. If you're a geeky exhibition designer type, you may pay attention to the glass structure surrounding the carpet which is one of the most expensive display cases ever made. (I've told this story before, but I'll tell it again: the case is made of non-reflective glass, but people kept walking into it, so they had to put a metal barrier around it.)

From here I doubled back to the Fashion Gallery. I really like the thematic way this is laid out, with displays focusing on different centres of fashion (Paris, London, New York, Milan etc) and others mixing clothes of different periods through common purposes - evening dress, underwear, wedding dresses.

The following ensemble, from Ralph Lauren circa 1981, may shock some viewers:

This one, on the other hand, was so beguiling I pressed my nose to the glass to see better. Just look how gorgeously elegant it is - crying out to star in a 1930s murder-mystery.

Here's a rather dashing suit from Molyneux whose name, I recently learned, is pronounced Molynukes. And he was Irish, what's more.

Last, but oh so far from least, I paid my traditional respects to the V & A shop. Truly this is one of the best shops in London. They have an amazing range of jewellery inspired by the collection - but not in a ticky tacky reproduction á la Past Times kind of way. The prices are very reasonable, starting around £5 for little brooches and earrings. (I used to have a sweet pair of button earrings which cost me about £3. Sadly they came to a bad end in a drain pipe.) There are also great toys and decorating ideas for kids, wonderful cards and prints and hundreds of delightful fripperies.

Tour finished, it's time for a hot chocolate. I had mine in Brindisa, where they make the hot chocolate in the traditional Spanish way: so thick a spoon can stand upright in it. Mmm mmm.