The V&A’s new Design 1900- Now gallery
(Picture: Victoria and Albert Museum)A copy of British Vogue with key workers on the cover and signs warning people of the dangers of Covid are among the newest objects on show in the V&A’s newest gallery.
The museum’s Design 1900 - Now gallery also includes a book of selfies by Kim Kardashian, UK road signs and a 2018 Nigerian football shirt.
The collection, in what was the museum’s 20th Century gallery, is an attempt to show the influence of design on our daily lives, with IKEA lamps and early London Underground map designs among the objects, as well as an iPhone and a 3D printer.
The V&A has been badly hit by the pandemic and subsequent lockdown, losing millions of pounds in ticket sales and being forced to make redundancies, though it backtracked on details of a proposed restructure that would have organised curatorial teams by region and time period instead of material specialism, after widespread criticism.
The museum, which is now open only five days a week instead of seven, re-opened last month and marked the occasion with a visit from the Duchess of Cambridge, who was shown the Raphael Cartoons and the new temporary exhibition Alice: curiouser and curiouser about Alice in Wonderland.
