Ocean Liners: Speed and Style (3 Feb 2018 – 10 Jun 2018)

The V&A  is rapidly becoming one of my favourite museums. Aside from the sheer amount of interesting material they have on permanent display throughout their buildings (V&A also run the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green), their temporary exhibitions are incredibly well mounted - and they have four running simultaneously.

The latest one to open is Ocean Liners: Speed and Style, which should appeal to transport-philes, lovers of art deco, people nostalgic for the golden age of Hollywood-style glamour, and frankly anyone whose artistic soul hasn't withered and died.

The exhibition prides itself as a comprehensive look at Ocean Liners, at it certainly works at meeting that claim. Handsomely mounted, with the room design and soundtrack creating the right mood, it provides an almost embarrassingly rich collection of liner-related material.

Like a number of the V&A's exhibitions, the exhibition starts strong and builds from there.

The first room starts with a look at the booking office. Posters and brochures advertise a number of different ships and routes.

Calling this a brochure might be a bit of a misnomer, as a number of  Lines used hardback books for their advertising - at least for the first class experience.

Might not want to book this particular voyage

The exhibition then moves on board, with furnishings and fittings from a number of different lines

Speed and Progress by Maurice Lambert. Relief panel from the Queen Mary.

A Torah Ark from the Queen Mary's synagogue

Panel from the first-class smoking room on the Normandie.

Bronze plaques from the Normandie depicting wheat and grapes.

Dancer with Three Seagulls by Marcello Mascherini

Panels from the first-class ballroom, and cocktail table from the SS United States, which was fitted-out with fireproof fixtures as the result of a fire on the SS Normandie when it was being refitted as a troopship during World War II.

A trip below-decks looks at the engineering and ship-building side, as well as including a look at liners during wartime.

Pattern for the casing of a steam turbine on the QE2.

Propaganda after the sinking of the Lusitania.

The exhibition continues onto the promenade deck.

Leisure is covered with the history of swimming pools on board ships, as well as details of various other entertainments.

Semaphore flags as they would have been displayed by a ship-board swimming pool. They read: come on in the water's fine.

Deckchair from the Titanic.

First class travelers would show off their glamorous evening wear coming down the ship's Grand Staircase before dinner in a ritual known as la grande descente, which is reflected in a visual display looking like something from a 1930s Hollywood musical.

The exhibition finishes with the cultural impact of ocean liners with excerpts of films such as The Poseidon Adventure, The Man with the Golden Gun, and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and art inspired by the great ships.

The end of the exhibition also includes a reminder that not all ocean voyages end well.

Flotsam from the Titanic.