when was the last time something big and new was this good?
brief thoughts on the V&A East Storehouse
Good morning and welcome to clipboard, a weekly newsletter based in London about trying your best. This morning, a couple of quick thoughts about the V&A East Storehouse, which I visited on my birthday. As always, if you like clipboard, forward it along to your friend who always recommends a good pub.
Editor’s pre-publication update: I wrote the below on Thursday, my birthday, feeling very excited about an upcoming trip to the beach in Antibes. Then, the French air traffic control union decided to go on strike and I had to cancel our trip to see the beach and my grandmother. Since then I’ve been grieving the loss of this long weekend away and haven’t had the energy to update the bits where I talk about my trip in the below. Just know, when I say “on a beach in the South of France,” circumstances have conspired that I now mean “pretending to enjoy the drought breaking in London.”
uncomplicatedly positive feelings
Hello! As you read this, I am on a beach in the South of France, but I’m writing this week’s issue on the occasion of my 27th birthday, having just come back from a visit to the new V&A East Storehouse. Because of my both-future-and-present trip away, this is a somewhat truncated, on the fly issue, but while that experience is fresh it’s the only thing I want to write about.
The Storehouse, for the uninitiated, is essentially a public-facing warehouse of the V&A’s expansive collection. It’s filled with everything from chairs to vintage fashion to an entire Frank Lloyd Wright designed office.
Everything is presented in situ, with the “wall text,” as it were, focused mostly on the work of building and maintaining a cultural institution and collection of the scale of the V&A. The space gives you a peek behind the scenes to understand the effort, craftsmanship and expertise that goes into preserving our cultural histories.
I loved it, as did everyone else there today, and expect that I’ll be going back a lot. I may form up more structured thoughts for a future issue, but because it’s my birthday and I want to go to the pub and then get on a plane, I’m just going to bullet point my first reactions.
Too many industries rely on a sense of magic or secrecy to build up their own value, but I think there’s a lot to learn from the V&A’s approach: people respond to true openness and authenticity, and they can tell when the wool is being pulled over their eyes. If what you do is of real value, demonstrating how it happens will deepen that sense of connection, not take away the magic.
For some reason, people felt more free to engage deeply with the items on display at the Storehouse than at the V&A “proper.” I couldn’t quite put my finger on why they felt like that, but it was so amazing to see people talking about how the objects provoked a memory or emotional response.
The Storehouse had a real willingness to talk about the complexities of museum making, especially in an imperial context like that of the V&A. I thought this space was the only time that I have even seen the point of view of museums wanting to hold onto stolen and looted artefacts, because it showed the visitor how much care goes into looking after them and sharing their story. I still think places like Greece, New Zealand or wherever deserve to have their own history, but it was refreshing to see a proper argument made for keeping stolen goods, whether you agree with it or not.
I loved watching the conservators at work, but did wonder how it affects your work to be part of the display instead of behind the scenes.
The whole project brims with confidence and positive energy: confidence that you have the best collection, that people will be interested to see it, and that you can execute such a mammoth effort of opening the doors.
There was truly nothing not to like about the experience, except that there was no gift shop (although others may see that as a positive). When was the last time you saw something big and new and had no notes? In a world where so many things feel worse than they used to be, it was amazing to see something that was clearly the result of hard work, dedication and huge investment, and the outcome to be absolutely worth it.
Can’t recommend this experience more, and will be taking every out of town visitor there if I can!
clips
My favourite Glastonbury from afar YouTube clips: Djo, ‘Basic Being Basic’; Snow Patrol, ‘Chasing Cars’; Olivia Dean, ‘Nice to Each Other’; Loyle Carner, ‘All I Need’; and my problematic faves The 1975, ‘About You’
Monocle are having a garage sale at their Marylebone offices next week - see you there?
This week in Substack faves: I enjoyed this piece from Blackbird Spyplane about good clothes having a (metaphorical) smell, Sprezza featured some great summer outfit tips from cool guys, and the algorithm served me a cool new London newsletter called “Everything’s Toasted” that is sort of like clipboard if I knew a bit more about what was going on in this city!
Cool stuff I wanted to buy this week: Horatio’s pleated shorts, New Balance 471s, Oakley Eyejackets (my dream running sunnies), Gottlob bracelets, new Idea hats (love “Lonely Boy”)
We had birthday brunch at Towpath, and damn was it good! Recommend getting in early on a weekday because the line was growing before we left.
That’s all for clipboard this week, thanks so much for reading! The best three-day-late birthday gift you could get me is sending this email to someone you think might like it - there’s no better endorsement I could hope for. I’ll be back next week, likely with French reflections and photos, and until then, follow clipboard on Instagram and send me an email if you’d like to chat or get coffee!