These new staff uniforms are more B&Q than V&A
With a heavy heart, I have to agree with the general consensus that the new V&A staff uniforms are hilariously awful.
Somewhere between B&Q, C&A and a parish council field trip, the garish orange and blue palette is the least worst thing about the layered T-shirts, bomber jackets and cheaplooking parkas.
The designer Christopher Raeburn apparently took his inspiration from Raphael’s Miraculous Draught of Fishes.
I honestly think he would been better updating the apostles’ flax undertunics and woollen simlahs for the museum’s faithful.
Harsh maybe, but I feel quite territorial about the V&A as I often take refuge in the Medieval rooms and regard the gilded walnut statuettes of St Barbara and St Catherine of Alexandria as my (spiritual) property. So, too, are the Alton Towers Triptych, the Boppard Altarpiece and (don’t tell) that table and chair near a handy plug socket in one of the ceramics rooms.
Best of all, there’s rarely a scrum to see the museum’s greatest treasures, although the fashion blockbusters are a sell-out. But it’s the exhibits, not the staff, that are meant to provoke thought.
Let me stress, I won’t have a word said against them: the assistants are knowledgeable, personable and helpful and as they wear (wore) suit jackets and ties, I’ve never had any difficulty differentiating them from a casual visitor (badly) dressed for a day out on the Fens.
The new uniforms were intended to be “a little disruptive” and reflect the V&A’S contemporary edginess, but I’m not sure how high twee florals score on the Vivienne Westwood scale of iconoclasm.
The staff were keen to wear colour and that’s entirely reasonable, but surely there’s a middle ground between uptight corporate branding and bring your pac-a-mac to work day? I fear I may need to bring in a blindfold, St Barbara.