Megan Singleton: BloggerAtLarge.com writer on the Vivienne Westwood exhibition taking over Wellington's Te Papa

British fashion icon Vivienne Westwood may have died two years ago, but her creative legacy lives on - with nearly 50 years of history attached.

Some of that legacy arrived in New Zealand this January, with the Vivienne Westwood & Jewellery exhibition taking over Wellington's Te Papa museum.

BloggerAtLarge.com's Megan Singleton got a look at the exhibit earlier this week - and shared some of her favourite pieces from the collection. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks ATB Travel with Wendy Woo tours Where
the World is Yours for Now.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Megan Singleton joins us now to talk travel.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
Good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I believe you took a little trip to Wellington recently
and popped into Papa's Vivian Westwood exhibition, which I'm hearing
great reviews about.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
It was Yeah, I loved it. It was amazing and you
probably need a good hour. In fact, you can nip
round it twice, which is what I did. It's actually
her jewelry collection, which I didn't know. I learned so
much about her. She's a lot more than punk and protest.
Just a little update or synopsis. She died in twenty

(00:51):
twenty two, aged eighty one, but she famously lived with
Malcolm McLaren of the Sex Pistols fame in the sixties
and seventies. Together they were disruptors. They were credited for
bringing punk music and fashion into the mainstream. Then she
was into sustainability long before it was fashtable. She's still
potty mouse right to the end. But what I loved

(01:13):
is there's five hundred and fifty pieces of jewelry here
at the Tipapa exhibition that is on and to April
twenty seventh. Then it's the first it's opened in New
Zealand as the first place in the world, and then
it's off to Shanghai. So there's so much there. There's
like antiquities pieces, a bronze breastplate that a model has worn,

(01:36):
bejeweled skulls and dog bone necklaces, earrings that would drag
your lobes to your shoulders. Honestly, they're just incredible. I
was just I made a little video actually because they
allow you to do that. The tiara like headwear with
brass bells, like massive holding my head as I show you.

(01:57):
And then she's got her diy era where she used
coke cans and trash and made jewelry. But it's her
big jewel orbs that I loved. And I didn't know
anything about this, but this is her signature logo. It's
basically a little globe. It could be ceramic, or it's

(02:18):
silver or gold, or it's encrusted with precious stones and
she's kind of wrapped like the rings of satin around it,
you know, yes, so it can be worn like a necklace.
But anyway, she's got these probably fifty sixty more than
that orbs just there mounted on these little sticks, and
that you just peer through a glass, you know, hood

(02:40):
to look at it. I was just fascinated by those.
She took a lot of her inspiration from the artwork
at the Wallace Collection in London, which was a surprise
for me because that's real highbrow art, you know. So
she's a fascinating lady and I think that exhibit as
well worth adding to your little Wellington list of things

(03:01):
to do.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Because it is so unique. You don't necessarily need to
be a lie of jewelry, do you to go and
enjoy this. It's it's sort of bigger and broader than that,
isn't it. Well, they've done around so.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Well exactly so there are fifteen fashion pieces, but then
all of the walls are made of fabric and there's
a video playing on those or they are covered in
sayings and quotes and images and stuff, and it's very cool.
It's a very busy thing to walk through. It's no,
it's not just jewelry. You sort of walk through her

(03:34):
legacy really and it's just fascinating. It's thirty dollars to enter,
so to Papa is a free museum. As we know,
the Gallipoli exhibition is still there, that is well worth
seeing if you haven't or even just going back to
see if you haven't seen it for a few years.
And then this one is just a visiting exhibition, so
you pay for that one.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
And would you recommend booking or can you just wander
on in and go whenever you like?

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (03:58):
No, you just wander on in. I mean there when
all I went, it was mid afternoon on Monday, I
think Tuesday. Now, there were hardly anybody in there. That's
why I whipped around twice. Well, yeah, I don't know
if you would need to book might be worth jumping
onto Papa's website to have a lot, because if you're going, specially,
you wouldn't want to be behind your big school group.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
That's right, if you were just a little bit push
for time. Meghan, Thank you so much, Meghan Singleton. You
can find her at blogger at large dot com and
as she mentioned, she's put up a little video that
is on her Facebook page. I'm sure you can get
to that from her blog.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin. Listen
live to news talks it'd be from nine am Sunday,
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