Subversive Sirens
Details
The Design Museum opened in 2016 and is housed in the iconic 1960s Commonwealth Centre. The Museum commissioned John Pawson to renovate the building with a scheme intended to respected the structure’s extraordinary qualities.
The Museum explores the role of design in shaping everyday life as well as hosting a range of temporary exhibitions, many of which focus on specific design movements and influential designers.
Venue
The Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, London W8 6AG
Event Organisers
Sarah Bowles and Philippa Barton
Cost
Cost of the visit is £56.00- plus Eventbrite booking fee
Cost of the visit for National Art Pass is £48.00 - Eventbrite booking fee
Programme
10.15am
Visit to the Design Museum and the Designer, Maker, User Gallery with Sarah Bowles
The visit will take in the history of the building as well as the Gallery which explores the development of modern design through the interconnected roles of the designer, the maker and the user and covers a broad range of design disciplines from architecture and engineering, fashion and graphics and the digital world.
11.30am
Morning Coffee
12.00 noon
Visit the exhibition Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style.
Celebrating our love of water, this engaging exhibition explores how swimming has shaped culture, fashion and fitness from the 1920s to the present day through the lens of design, architecture and fashion. The three sections of the exhibition, designed to mimic different swimming spaces, explore the British love of swimming from the lure of the seaside to the British love of lidos in the 1930s and the rise in popularity of wild swimming in the present day.
Highlights include swimwear through the ages, with the knitted Municpal bathing costume that Margate Corporation rented to swimmers from the 1920s, the shocking bikini designed in 1946 by Louis Réard, Pamela Anderson’s bright red Baywatch swimsuit and eye-catching men’s speedo briefs from the 1980s. Other delights include a Lanvin cotton towelling beach peignoir, silk beach pyjamas from the 1930s, an array of swimming caps, beach dresses and reef shoes.