![]() ![]() ![]() Hand on heart, I couldn’t think of a single star who was missing from the pantheon and I felt that Prince, RuPaul and rapper Lil Nas X, whose purple off-the-shoulder Atelier Versace pantsuit-and-train is on display, had all earned their place in the glittering firmament. There are bound to be grumbles about the relative amounts of exposure given to different divas, but that’s only ’cos we care. While Rihanna’s 2018 Met Gala papal ensemble is a show-stopper and I defy anyone not to smile aloud at Shirley Bassey’s bespoke Swarovski-studded wellies made for her 2007 appearance at Glastonbury, politics is present too Billie Holliday, Nina Simone, Joan Baez. Instead, the headsets are fitted with technology that interacts with sensors on each display, triggering an extraordinary soundtrack as you walk through the space Maria Callas singing Casta diva, Dusty Springfield’s haunting You Don’t Own Me, Barbra Streisand pleading Don’t Rain on My Parade. Here comes the science bit visitors wear state-of-the-art headsets delivering 360-degree surround sound that are nothing like the glorified Walkmans of old. ![]() Told through photographs and objects, portraits and costumes, DIVA is less an exhibition than a son-et-lumière full-body immersion that ingeniously taps into something far more potent our own memories. Cometh the confusion, cometh the V&A’s summer blockbuster, a joyous reminder of the elemental power, the dizzying theatricality, the towering self-belief of the diva as defined and redefined through history and culture. Regardless of the fast-fashion optics and high-maintenance clichés, divas are not ten-a-penny. What is a diva? Is it Lady Gaga in a meat dress, Marilyn Monroe breathlessly channeling the innocent vamp, Sir Elton as Louis Quatorze in a mile-high wig? Truthfully, once any word appears on T-shirts, mugs and baby-grows, it loses much of its meaning and all of its force whatever the protected characteristics of a diva, I think we can all agree that ubiquity isn’t supposed to be one of them. ![]()
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