Ocean Liners: Speed and Style

From the mid-19th century to the late 20th century, the ocean liner revolutionised sea travel. Ocean Liners: Speed and Style at the V&A, explores the design and cultural impact of the passenger liner around the world, delving into the hidden design stories of some of the world's most resplendent liners, including the Titanic, Normandie, the Queen Mary and the Canberra. 

This exhibition revives the golden age of ocean travel, from ground-breaking engineering and fashionable interiors, to the lifestyle on board and their cultural impact on art, architecture, design and film. With over 250 objects including paintings, sculpture, ship models, fashion, photographs and posters. The exhibition will also feature works by Modernist artists, designers and architects inspired by liners.

Image taken from the V&A website

Image taken from the V&A website

Image taken from Riba Journal

Image taken from the V&A website

Taking inspiraton from this exhibition we discovered lots of luxurious items at Alfies that wouldn't look out of place on an ocean liner, reminiscent of the golden age of splendour.

Furniture and home accessories at Alfies

Cunard To Canada poster 1930s, available from Dodo Posters

Art Deco flame grained rosewood club chairs, available from The Moderns

Art Deco walnut table, available from Travers Antiques 

Decorative blue vase, available from Diplomat Treasures International

A selection of vintage suitcases and Louis Vuitton trunks, available from Tin Tin Collectables Luggage

Fashion

Those who went on ocean voyages filled their Louis Vuitton steamer trunks with finery. The decks resembled a red carpet of the latest fashions, with the rich and famous donning apparel by the world's greatest designers. 

Vintage tiara, available from Zeeba Jewels

1920s dress, available from June Victor

1930s beaded dress, available from Tin Tin Collectables

1920s Bathing suit "WESTOE LADIES - ASC - SOUTH SHIELDS", available from Tin Tin Collectables

1920s bathing suit with belt loops, available from Tin Tin Collectables

R.M.S. Queen Mary dining scene, Jacqmar London silk scarf, available from Tin Tin Colllectables

Ocean Liners: Speed & Style will run until 17 June, 2018 at the V&A

Wilhelm Wagenfeld for Jenaer Glas

Wilhelm Wagenfeld was one of the few Bauhaus designers to establish a continuing and successful involvement with industrial mass production. For Jenaer Glas he experimented with glass manufactured with silica and boron oxide. This highly heat-resistant material was developed in Germany at the Schott and Genossen Glassworks, a company founded in 1884 in Jena, Germany, by chemist Otto Schott. It was Schott's son, Erich, who enlisted the help of Bauhaus designers to create housewares with the "borosilicate" glass, testing the Bauhaus philosophy of harmony between function and design in industrial production.

Wagenfeld used the practical and translucent material to design a tea set perfectly aligned with Modernist principles of functionality and simplicity. He once said that an object's most important feature was its "unpretentiousness".

His classic tea set design would become a signature piece and is still being made at present with only slight design modifications.

Jenaer Glas Wagenfeld Tea Service

Original Wilhelm Wagenfeld glass teacup and saucer (set of 6 available) by Jenaer Glas. Designed and created by Wilhelm Wagenfeld in 1931 and inspired by the Bauhaus.  Available from Robinson Antiques.

Original Schott makers mark