There's not many things that we enjoy doing with our weekends more than soaking up some culture - and when it's combined with fashion, we're well and truly sold. A rainy Saturday is best spent at the historical and beautiful Somerset House, taking in the Valentino: Master of Couture exhibition, which ends on 3rd March 2013.
This major exhibition celebrates the life and work of Valentino, and showcases over 130 exquisite haute couture designs worn by icons such as Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Grace Kelly, Sophia Loren and Gwyneth Paltrow in an exciting installation created specially for Somerset House.
COMPANY'S GUIDE TO 2013's COOLEST EXHIBITIONS
The initial part of the exhibition is a peeping-tom style insight to Valentino's world, through personal photographs and letters from A-listers and fashion editors (Anna Wintour's handwriting has to be seen to be believed!), then onto press cuttings from dressing some of the biggest names from around the world.
The exhibition then unfolds into a couture fashion show where roles are reversed with visitors walking the catwalk to view a staggering one hundred and thirty Valentino haute couture designs, zigzagged across the upstairs of the showspace and spanning 50 years of incredible craftsmanship.
The final section unpicks the painstaking processes of crafting couture exemplified by the stunning wedding dress of Princess Marie Chantal of Greece, demonstrating the beauty of the work of les petites mains who sew each stitch by hand - we feel privileged to have been able to see the one of a kind dress in the flesh!
We highly recommend that you visit this exhibition before it ends - it will make you appeciate couture like never before.
