Someone might have seen the dress Edith Piaf used to wear, or the two-piece ensemble Cher wore at the 1975 Rock Music Awards, before they ever listened to one of their songs
the power of Divas at V&A, London – challenging the status quo
Costumes are key to the power of Divas. Rich in drama, boldness, and creativity, they are the incarnation of je ne sais quoi that make a selected group of celebrities Divas. To explore the power of Divas through fashion, the V&A selected more than 250 items from its collection and secured loans from all over the globe, ranging from fashion, photography, design, and costumes.
«The V&A, with its world-class collections of art design and performance and its mission to inspire creativity in all its forms, is the perfect stage to celebrate the multifaceted Diva. Today, the word diva holds a myriad of meanings. At the heart of this exhibition is a story of performers who, with creativity, courage, and ambition, have challenged the status quo and used their voice and their art to redefine and reclaim the Diva». Said Kate Bailey, curator of the DIVA exhibition.
The DIVA celebrates the power of a glittering set of stars active in opera, popular music, and cinema and across the decades to express themselves, inspire others, and beat the odds.
In fact, the exhibit includes outfits donned by some of the most glittering stars from various decades and fields, like the stage ensemble donned by Greek Soprano Maria Callas when interpreting the role of the titular character in the 1952 Covent Garden Opera Company production of Bellini’s ‘Norma’ and the black long-sleeve fringe-hem dress American actresses Marilyn Monroe wore in the 1959 Billy Wilder movie Some like it hot as Sugar Kane.
the V&A explores the relationship between the art of drag and the Diva
Welsh icon Dame Shirley Bassey’s 2007 Glastonbury Julien MacDonald gown is also featured in the exhibition. «I’m delighted that the V&A will be displaying my Glastonbury look in DIVA, complete with diamanté Wellington boots! It is wonderful to see the Diva celebrated in this exhibition, and to see the V&A reclaiming the title. To me, ‘diva’ is all about the power of the voice and the ability to entertain, to succeed against odds, to fight, and break through barrier after barrier: to have your voice heard». Said the singer.
The exhibit celebrates Divas who had the power to blur the confines of the gender binary in popular media through their outfits and persona with homages to the style of trailblazing icons such as Jamaican-American singer Grace Jones, British singer Elton John, and singer and multi-instrumentalist Prince. The style of many outfits that turned celebrities into divas borrowed plenty from the world of drag and its exaggerated, flamboyant, larger-than-life aesthetic, and the V&A explores this relationship between the art of drag and the Diva in a dedicated video wall.
What’s a Diva? – Casta Diva and the making of celebrity in fashion
The word ‘diva’ originates from Latin, as a noun describing a female deity. This term made its way to the English language through Italian. While in Southern European language, this term started out with the same meaning it had in Latin, as seen in Bellini’s aria Casta Diva, in English, it was used since the 19th century to refer to female performers as seen in the 1883 definition of the term diva given by the Oxford English Dictionary which described it as a term used to refer to ‘a distinguished female singer, a prima donna’.
Since then, the term has been used to refer to female performers active on the stage, the big and the gray screen, and as a derogatory term aimed at degrading the assertiveness of women and femme-presenting people from all walks of life.
Reappropriated and ever-changing, this term has an ineffable nature that makes it hard to define. While the bare-boned definition the Oxford English Dictionary gave it more than a hundred years ago seems limited now in terms of gender, finding a univocal description for Diva can be challenging.
Divas aren’t simply talented artists but also people who have the power to use their talents, stories, and personalities to build personas that the public can resonate with and leave a mark on how we perceive artistry itself.
Know your power – the V&A exhibition shows fashion as tool of self-expression and empowerment
Given the visual nature of the media of then and now, the close relationship between fashion and the making of Diva is no surprise. The V&A exhibition illustrates how having an identifiable, memorable style in the public consciousness is a key aspect of what makes a celebrity a Diva.
Some looks donned by stars infiltrate the public consciousness almost as much as the artists who wore them, taking almost a new life of their own.
Someone might have seen the little black dress from the 1950s the French singer Edith Piaf used to wear or the glittering two-piece ensemble by American designer and costumier CHER wore at the 1975 Rock Music Awards before they ever listened to one of their songs.
The struggles, polish, and other-worldliness of contemporary divas have earned many divas the status of ‘Gay icons’ regardless of their sexuality. In the book The Death of Camp: Gay Men and Hollywood Diva Worship, from Reverence to Ridicule author Daniel Harris explained: «At the very heart of gay diva worship is not the diva herself but the almost universal homosexual experience of ostracism and insecurity, which ultimately led to what might be called the aestheticism of maladjustment, the gay man’s exploitation of cinematic visions of Hollywood grandeur to elevate himself above his antagonistic surroundings and simultaneously express membership in a secret society of upper-class aesthetes».
Before the personal fashion stylist – the work and impact of costume designers on the entertainment industry
The looks of Divas on screen, on stage, and on red carpets are like many creative works, the result of the work of more than one person.
«There’s only a very small part of the work when you’re designing costumes for a film that is done in a solitary way. I’m hardly ever alone. The only time I’m working alone is like the first time I read the script or if I’m working on the script, or if I’m doing my own research, looking through books, collecting images. Apart from that, I’m surrounded by people by a team of people who I couldn’t be without. So I’m either working with my own department, which will be assistant supervisors, cutters, stitches, embroiderers, painters. I mean, there are numerous, numerous people that make up the department to actually help create the costumes once they’re designed. But of course, the entire time you’re working with the director and with the other heads of department with a production design with hair and makeup and cinematography especially. The whole thing is a collaboration. It’s not a solitary job at all». Explained Academy Award winner Sandy Powell in an interview with the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA).
The work of costume designers such as Powell, eight-time Academy Award winner Edith Head, Emmy Award winner Bob Mackie, and Academy Award winner Jacqueline Durran has made a priceless contribution to the rise of countless Divas.
Are Divas becoming a thing of the past? At the V&A exhibit: Rihanna’s ‘Naked dress’, Janelle Monae’s ‘Vulva pants’
In addition to vintage looks and historical artifacts such as the costume designed by Christian Dior and worn by British actress Vivien Leigh in Jean Giraudoux’s ‘Duel of Angels’ the V&A exhibit features looks from the last ten years like Rihanna’s 2014 CFDA Swarovski-crystal-encrusted “Naked” Dress and the ‘Vulva pants’ designed by Duran Lantink for Janelle Monae’s music video of the song ‘Pynk’ from the American Artist third studio album, Dirty Computer (2018).
While the screen, the stage, and the award season have given us plenty of looks in the past decade, it comes naturally to wonder if Divas won’t become a thing of the past to an increasing degree. This scarcity couldn’t be originating from social media alone, where celebrities have been sharing more or less curated glimpses of their everyday lives, eroding that layer of mystery that shrouded stars of the past, but also from the way the relationship between fashion and A-listers have changed.
While in the past, big screen celebrities were signed to studios, nowadays they are signed with fashion houses, which can prevent the off-screen collaborations between consumers and actors that have created red carpets in the past. Still, in the past few years, Gen Z it-girls Zendaya and Anya Taylor-Joy have donned Bob Mackie gowns on the red carpet in two of their fashion moments, so the days of off-screen costumier-stars collaboration might not be over yet.
DIVA exhibit at V&A South Kensington, London
The Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the art, design, and performance museum based in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, is celebrating the power of the diva with a theatricality-filled fashion exhibition.
The exhibition DIVA honors the strength and creativity of legendary performers who left a mark on pop culture through a deep dive into the outfits that turned those celebrities into Divas.
From 24 June 2023 to 7 April 2024, the V&A visitors can get to take a peek into the world of some of the most culture-defining performers active on the stage and the big screen between the 19th century and today thanks to their costumes, with several of them are being displayed for the first time to the general public.
The V&A
The Victoria & Albert Museum, which houses a permanent collection of more than 2.8 million items, books, and archives spanning more than 5,000 years of human creation, is among the best museum of art and design in the world.
