A new exhibition at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum offers a look into the style and belongings of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo
A new retrospective at London’s V&A offers a look at the style and belongings of artist Frida Kahlo, a woman who had a clear and innate understanding of the power of appearance.
When Mexican artist Frida Kahlo died in 1954, at the age of 47, her husband Diego Rivera ordered that her room – and everything in it – be sealed, with instructions for it not to be opened again until a er his death. Although Rivera, who was a painter himself and helped set up the Mexican mural movement, died three years later, it was not until 2004 that Kahlo’s room was finally reopened. Within lay a near-perfect time capsule of her life, from her distinctive clothes to her favourite make-up.
Now, for the first time, this extraordinary collection is being shown outside of her native Mexico, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Entitled Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, the exhibition is a look not only at Kahlo’s possessions, but also at how she used them to create the unique and powerful image she presented to the world.
An artist famous for works inspired by nature and Mexican artefacts, as well as brutally honest selfportraits, Kahlo’s experience was one of extreme creativity marred by intense personal tragedy. Born in 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City, Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón was a bright and spirited child, who understood the power of appearance from an early age. Family photographs show a teenage Kahlo wearing a man’s suit (complete with shirt and tie), her famous monobrow untouched and her hair slicked back in a masculine manner. Amid her sisters, who are dressed in fashionable American-style clothing, Kahlo is striking in her uniqueness.
A childhood bout of polio meant she had to endure months of bed rest, but despite being le with a deformed right leg and months of missed education, Kahlo was active and sporty, and became one of the few girls allowed to attend the renowned National Preparatory High School.
In 1925, however, when she was 18, Kahlo’s life was altered completely, when the bus she was travelling on collided with a tram, plunging a steel rail through her abdomen. With a severely damaged spine, leg and pelvis, she was lucky to survive, and spent weeks in hospital in a full-body cast. Her injuries le her in constant pain for the rest of her life, and she would endure close to 35 operations, including spinal taps and botched attempts to fuse her vertebrae, to try and repair the destruction.
It was during her long recovery that Kahlo began to paint, channelling her pain into art. Unable to move, she painted her own portrait. She later explained: “I paint self-portraits because I am so o en alone, because I am the person I know best.” Painting became Kahlo’s focus, and a medium for exploring and confronting the painful personal journey that she now found herself on.
Once she could walk again, Kahlo dressed herself not in the fashion of the time, but in traditional Mexican clothing. In particular, she adopted the huipil blouse of the Tehuantepec region – a loose, square-cut top covered in boldly embroidered flowers – teamed with a long, colourful, full skirt. She favoured bright and vivid colours, both in her clothing and her work. This was not coincidental, but something that the artist mindfully explored. Kahlo wrote lists with her own interpretations of the meaning behind the colours she favoured. Green meant “good, warm and light”, while magenta was the colour of the Aztecs, the “blood of the prickly pear”, and the “brightest and oldest”. Yellow signified “madness, sickness and fear”, but also “the sun and happiness”, while blue was “electricity, purity and love”. The colour black, meanwhile, was explained, rather cryptically: “nothing is black – really, nothing”.
For Kahlo, combining meaningful colours and loosefitting silhouettes was clearly not only about adorning clothing that was beautiful-looking, but that also helped to disguise her disabilities.
She would o en wear her long, dark hair piled up in intricate plaits, topped with a halo of colourful flowers. Combined with long earrings and loose scarves, Kahlo’s look was both steeped in her country’s tradition, yet made entirely her own. In fact, so unique was Kahlo’s style, that she was featured in American
Vogue in 1937.