Ocean Liners: Speed and Style
Victoria and Albert Museum, London Until Jun 17
This is a charming and engaging idea for an exhibition, bound to make a very enjoyable outing with a good friend.
Ocean liners underwent a golden age over quite a compact period of time: they went through a quick and striking series of stylistic changes; they present, at this distance, an often delightful idea of a fantasy existence of dressing up and parading, a dream of elegance.
The story starts with Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s huge Great Eastern, built in 1858. After that, ships grew in size and started to compete on the busiest routes to attract the best-paying customers.
1950-Actress, Marlene Dietrich, unquestionably one of the most glamourous grandmothers in the world, looks fabulous after arriving at New York aboard the Queen Elizabeth
Ocean travel, which had been fairly utilitarian, began to acquire an air of luxury and grand style, and the great shipping companies started to invest in the best designers and artists of the day. Their liners were both triumphs of engineering and extraordinary spectacles.
By the Twenties the great ship interiors were being shaped by modernism, and above all by the splendours of Art Deco.
For me, Art Deco is the period of the ocean liners’ greatest glory. There are some astounding things here. The French liner Normandie must be the most magnificent vessel ever created, and the superb panels and furniture here are astonishing.
Poster for Italia Flotte Riunite, designed by Giovanni Patrone. Ocean travel, which had been fairly utilitarian, began to acquire an air of luxury and grand style
Brief fragments of film, as throughout the exhibition, give a tantalising hint of just how showy the look of the whole thing was. The British Queen Mary had a more restrained modernism – it’s one of the rare liners that survives – and even Hitler’s Germany joined in with the Wilhelm Gustloff.
Of course, all this was in service of a brutally strict class system, with passengers divided into first, second and third classes for all purposes. But for the moment we can all fantasise about being in first class in our most glamorous clothes, coming down a sweeping staircase before dinner in the nightly ritual known as la grande descente.