Translated by
Barbara Santamaria
Published
Sep 19, 2017
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Frida Kahlo’s wardrobe is coming to London in 2018

Translated by
Barbara Santamaria
Published
Sep 19, 2017

Frida Kahlo’s eclectic and famously colourful wardrobe will be on display outside Mexico for the first time. A part of the Mexican artist’s clothing and personal items collection will be presented at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London from 16 June until 4 November 2018.


Frida Kahlo photographed in San Ángel, Mexico City, in 1938 -Nickolas Muray - NICKOLAS MURAY


The V&A, the world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, will exhibit Kahlo’s clothing and personal possessions, including prosthetics, medicines, accessories, jewellery, photographs and letters.

The items were found in 2004 in the Blue House in Mexico City, where Kahlo lived with her artist husband Diego Rivera, following the opening up of cupboards and storerooms which had remained sealed for fifty years.

“This ground-breaking exhibition will explore the development of Kahlo’s style as an amalgam of traditional Mexican garments, fashion from Europe and beyond, and demonstrate how her wardrobe was expressive of the complex relationship between her Mexican and Western heritage,” says the V&A on its website.

Highlights of the exhibition will include hand-painted corsets, examples of her famous Tehuana dress, and paintings such as My Dress Hangs There (1933) and The Love Embrace (1943), all providing a dazzling journey into Frida’s personal and artistic world.

Kahlo was left disabled by polio as a child and was later severely injured in a bus accident. According to the V&A, “Kahlo’s disabilities throughout her life are also central to understanding her sartorial choices, and the exhibition will offer fresh perspectives on Kahlo’s compelling life story through the display of such orthopaedic devices and medicines.”

The exhibition is yet to be named, but it is currently on show at Blue House in Mexico as ‘Las apariencias engañan’ (‘Appearances can be deceiving’) and includes more than 300 items.

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