Voigt at Sophienholm

Some season for fashion exhibitions, this summer turned out to be. Yesterday I visited Sophienholm’s show of couture, costumes and sketches by the late Jean Voigt and jewelry by his daugther Zarah. It’s a fanciful universe they create, dark and luxurious; eros and thanatos wrought in lace and organza.

It was a feast for the eyes, but the exhibition offered precious little in terms of contexturalisation or critique, and I, stupidly, forgot to get back to the introductory film that I skipped at the entrance as I was eager to get to the good stuff. My bad, and too bad, as it would have been interesting to learn more about this unique character of Danish couture.

A personal favourite was Janni Spies’ wedding dress – hers was THE celebrity wedding of the 80’s in Denmark, right up there with Charles and Diana, and I vividly remember marvelling at the creation in the gossip pages at the time. Seeing it up close was thus a real treat.

A perplexing detail, however, was the fact that most of the sketches on display – as well as the jewelry – were for sale or sold, so in effect the museum just served as a gallery. Worse still, the very reasonable prices gave a suspicious feeling that the selection of sketches were not his best and most precious, but rather just excess from his estate.