Uniform mediocrity

Don’t blame Raphael. That is who Christopher Raeburn, the designer, says inspired him to produce a range of uniforms that the poor old staff of the Victoria & Albert Museum will have to wear. The V&A has a vast room hung with huge designs for tapestries by Raphael, including The

Miraculous Draught of Fishes. Say what you like about the Old Master’s muscular, half-robed Disciples, they don’t look like supermarket shelfstackers. That is what the new uniforms have unkindly, if accurately, been compared to. If you were a V&A warder invested with authority to tell visitors not to wave umbrellas at a porcelain figure of Venus Crouching (slightly cracked), wouldn’t you prefer an authoritative tailcoat with brass buttons, like attendants at Buckingham Palace? Wouldn’t visitors love that, too? Some hope.