Catwalk

Dundee 2026 #4

I'm not, and have never been, a particularly fashion-conscious person, apart from a brief and glorious exploration of midi-dresses and thigh-high white PVC boots in a heady period for fashion in my early 20s. Nevertheless, I thought it silly not to enjoy the current major exhibition in Dundee's V&A: 'Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show'. It 'charts the dramatic evolution of the catwalk, from the private salons of the late 19th century to today’s immersive, live-streamed runway experiences'.

Actually I found the early history to be the most interesting part. Originally, clothing was made bespoke for individuals by dressmakers. In the late 1860s, it was an Englishman in Paris, Charles Frederick Worth, who first introduced the concept of pre-designed collections and employed house models to show his designs to clients. 

The idea of the mannequin was born and shows started to be choreographed to present each new season's collections. 

High-end clothing was 'couture' and bespoke right up to the 1950s/60s, when many young fashion designers started to offer luxury 'ready-to-wear' for a progressive clientele, using modern synthetic materials and unconventional presentations - in cafés, on the streets, in boutiques and on TV. 

Designs like Paco Rabanne's 'Mirror Dress' (above), Mary Quant's use of PVC and Vivienne Westwood's avant-garde cuts and styling (below) were accompanied by high-energy shows, with models dancing, running and jumping - all projecting the youthful vibe of the 'swinging' London scene.  

The 1980s and 90s saw the rise of the 'supermodel' - stars with presence and glamour like Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and others. But high fashion, the 'looks' and beauty ideals associated with it started to become almost unachievable for the average woman. 

Catwalk shows became full productions, with hair stylists like Sam McKnight using their skills to create image-defining art forms, part of the aesthetic identity of the major fashion houses. Fashion shows had evolved into elaborately staged, provocative, theatrical spectacles with outfits far removed from the normal clothing we wear every day. 

The Covid pandemic in the early 2020s disrupted fashion as well as everything else. The Dior Collection for Autumn/Winter 2020/21 was presented as a film, with a suitcase filled with miniature clothes embarking on a fantasy adventure. 

Those designs do, at least, look wearable, unlike the dramatic blue dress below, whose voluminous skirt certainly wouldn't fit through your average doorway! 

In addition to this major exhibition, the V&A Dundee also had an exploration of design and disability, and holds a rather wonderful permanent collection celebrating Scottish design, with the fully restored 'Oak Room', designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh for a Glasgow tearoom, that has been stored in pieces after being salvaged in 1971. 

V&A, Dundee - interior

Dundee 2026 #3

Inside the V&A is as complex as the outside, with intersecting planes, odd angles and a mountainous staircase clinging to the side - as though it were indeed a Scottish cliff! (There is a lift for those who need it.) The bottom of the first pyramid is one large foyer space, holding the reception desk, a shop and a small display area. I assume the bottom of the second pyramid is offices and storage space.  

The two pyramids join to become one huge space upstairs, divided into exhibition galleries, with a café and meeting spaces. The wooden cladding is designed, I suppose, to echo the concrete vanes on the building's exterior. 

On the upper floor there are two small external balcony areas too, giving views up and downstream to the Tay bridges. It's all quite interesting, even if it's somehow not a very 'comfortable' building. 

The V&A, Dundee

Dundee 2026 #2

My main motivation for a stopover in Dundee was to visit the V&A design museum, opened in 2018. With links to the V&A in London, it was a bold vision to revitalise Dundee's waterfront and draw visitors to the city, which it appears to have successfully achieved. The building itself was designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, who is said to have been inspired by the eastern cliff edges of Scotland (though it looks to me more like a ship, with a prow jutting out over the Firth of Tay).  

It is basically two inverted pyramids, separate on the ground floor and twisting to meet on the top floor. This results in a tunnel between the two structures, creating a frame and a route through which the city and river are connected. It's a bold building, quite a statement. I suspect people either like it or hate it - and it was an enjoyable challenge to photograph. 

The Tay Bridge

Dundee 2026 #1

I didn't come straight home after the Fife walking holiday, instead choosing to travel a little further north to Dundee, across the Firth of Tay. 

The first ever bridge across the Tay, replacing a train ferry service, was a single track rail bridge that opened in 1878. In 1879, disaster struck when it suddenly collapsed in high winds while a train was crossing, killing all 75 people aboard. The incident remains one of the worst bridge-related engineering disasters in history, an event that shook the Victorian engineering community. Eventually another rail bridge was built, much stronger and sturdier, that opened in 1887 and is still used to day. You can see it in the distance in the photo below. 

Road traffic continued to use ferries until the Tay Road Bridge was constructed, opening in 1966. It has a dual carriageway and a pedestrian/cycle route down the middle. It's quite a walk! At 1.4 miles, the bridge is one of the longest road bridges in the UK. Until 2008 it was a toll bridge, but fees to cross it are no longer required.

My last photo shows the road bridge from the riverside in Dundee.  Those scaffold type towers behind it are not part of the bridge, and may be something to do with offshore energy installations.  

There is some humour attached to these bridges. In 2002, a local radio competition to find a slogan for the bridge was abandoned after the slogan with the most votes – 'It's all downhill to Dundee' – (reflecting the bridge's downward angle) was deemed unsuitable.

With regard to the Tay rail bridge disaster, it led to the writing of possibly one of the worst poems in history, by William McGonagall. It's so bad it's almost comical. (Read it HERE) It ends: 

'For the stronger we our houses do build,

The less chance we have of being killed.'

A lonely cloud

Clouds have been something of a rarity over recent weeks. This one, though present, was certainly 'wandering lonely', though I thought it made a nice composition. I'm very much getting to the point where I want to see actual rainclouds - and it's not often you feel like that in this country! 

Leeds canal walk

It was a pleasant walk in the sunshine back to Leeds rail station, along the towpath of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. There are numerous bridges and it's all quite green and leafy, with waterlilies on the surface. 

A section sandwiched between the canal and river has been made into an urban park, quite untamed and full of wildflowers and butterflies. 

Graffiti 'artists'/hooligans (depending on your viewpoint!) have run amok. One wonders how they have managed to access some of the more out of the way stretches, like the wall below tightly sandwiched between the canal and rail lines.  And still more high-rise blocks are under construction. 

Here and there, reminders of the industrial past of this area have been retained. The Italianate tower (below), built in 1866 and modelled on the Torre dei Lamberti in Verona, was a dust extractor for the Tower Works, operational from 1864 until 1981, which made steel pins for carding and combing in the textile industry. 

Eventually the canal arrives at its Leeds endpoint, Granary Wharf (the name being no doubt a bit of a giveaway as to what used to be situated here). In the distance in my photo below you can see the lock that releases it into the River Aire, which becomes navigable from here through the centre of the city to the Leeds Dock marina and then into the Aire and Calder Navigation. 

Angles

There was something quite compelling about all the new glass and steel office blocks in Wellington Place in Leeds. Those vast expanses of windows reflect the sky quite wonderfully and the grids break and intersect in intriguing ways. I had fun trying out different compositions; I could have stayed and played a lot longer. I do, however, wonder if they'll have as long a life as the amazing Victorian and Edwardian buildings right in the city centre. Probably not! 

Monk Bridge Viaduct

Just south of the Wellington Place development (see yesterday), what's left of the disused railway viaduct has recently been reopened as a pedestrian walkway and urban garden, linking the office development with residential areas south of the river. 

The grade two-listed Monk Bridge Viaduct was built around 1846 as part of the new railway network being constructed in the Wellington Street area of Leeds. It became an important part of Leeds Central Station which was completed in 1857, carrying high level lines to the station and connecting to the lifting tower which still stands on the Wellington Place development today.

It still spans the Leeds-Liverpool Canal as that winds its way into the city:

as well as the River Aire which runs alongside the canal: 

The old trackway has been made into an urban park, quite attractive though I'm not sure I'd want to be wandering around there at dusk.