My summer season of catch up continues and I started this day off with a visit to the Barbican Centre to see John Paul Gaultier’s magnificent exhibition From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk.  The wonderful thing about the Barbican is that one can photograph without a flash, I came out of this exhibition, three and a half hours later with hundreds of photographs to keep.  I’ll share just a few.  The other amusing aspect of this show is that the manniquens have been staged to have their faces move and some speak.  The first time you see something move out of the corner of your eye, it makes you jump, its great fun and really well done.   If you do go to see this exhibition it is huge, do allow yourself plenty of time.

I love the details.

And when I saw this, I was a bit shocked, but on closer inspection,

It is made entirely of

beads.  Absolutely jaw dropping, how would this even be achievable?  How many hours did it take?  How many people?

A knitted frock, beautiful.

Stunning, and such a gorgeous colour.

And where would you even start to sew that together?

I then trundled over to see Matisse Cutouts at Tate Modern.   They were so very interesting, such apparently simple ideas executed at a level of genius.

On the way home one can’t help but notice the building work that one can see and hear (the clanking of steel girders)

That appears everywhere in London.

A few people playing at being mud larks. If I wasn’t so tired I might have joined them, it does look like the greatest of fun to try and find pieces of ancient pottery and glass.

And these pillars intrigued me.   I found that they were from the first Blackfriars Railway bridge opened in 1864 and this is all that remain.  I think they are quite beautiful.

And so it was I wandered home.