BySiddhi Jain

September 17, 2019 (IANSlife) The largest-ever exhibition on Tim Walker, one of the world’s most inventive fashion photographers, opened on Sunday at London's Victoria and Albert Museum. “Tim Walker: Wonderful Things” celebrates the photographer's extraordinary contribution to image-making over the last 25 years. The exhibition will continue till March 2020.

Born in 1970 in London, Walker first came to prominence in the 1990s with his unique approach to visual storytelling, blurring fantasy and reality to create pictures that can be surreal, lavish, humorous and touching. He has since photographed for the world's leading fashion and style magazines including the British, Italian and American editions of Vogue.

The exhibition showcases over 300 items, encompassing photographs and the V&A objects that inspired them, short films, photographic sets and props, scrapbooks and sketches. It begins with 100 pictures from Walker’s previous projects and extracts from his 'Super 8' films.

The images feature some of the biggest names in fashion -- models including Edie Campbell, Lily Cole, Karen Elson and Stella Tennant and designers such as Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Comme des Garcons and Rick Owens.

Walker’s new series of photographs inspired by the V&A is also on display. Among others, on display are 16th century stained glass panels and an exquisite illuminated manuscript made in the 1470s for the Duchess of Brittany. These Renaissance treasures inspired some of Walker’s on-view pictures.

Beyond the exhibition, the V&A’s Photography Centre screens Tim’s newest film, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, a ballet performed by dancers from the Michael Clark Company in costumes inspired by paper dolls in the V&A Museum of Childhood.

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Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in

Editing by Ritu Pandey and N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe