FAMILIES LEEDS Blog Review (31/01/2011)

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Spicemania returns to LEEDS
Families Leeds reviews Leeds City Museum's new SpiceWorld Exhibition


Pull on your platform boots and check your lip stick. You're invited to go behind the scenes at a Spice Girls concert and take a trip down memory lane with one of the biggest pop bands of all time. Leeds City Museum are hosting a collection of over 3,000 items of Spice Girls memorabilia hoarded by fan Liz West over more than a decade. From key rings and branded chocolate bars to some of the most memorable outfits worn by the give Wannabees, it's all here for you to see. As you walk into the exhibition, you're invited to be either an artist or a manager, and take their journey with Baby, Sporty, Ginger, Posh and Leeds' own Scary. Given Mel B's roots here in Yorkshire the City Museum is the obvious choice for such an exhibition, and they're delighted to be hosting it.

"This is contemporary collecting at its best," says Helen Langwick, Curator of Exhibitions at Leeds City Museum. "Liz is a modern day version of the people in Victorian times who traveled the world collecting crocodiles. They are the reason we have museums and the collections of today, like this, are the history of tomorrow."

The Spice Girl's history is the history of a generation, the history of the 90s. Their Girl Power slogan made a generation of young women, my generation, believe they could be anything they wanted to be. Girl Power is everywhere as you walk around the exhibition - it's in the music, on the magazine covers and in the masses and masses of merchandise Spicemania produced. For Liz West, collector and Co-Curator of the Exhibition, seeing her collection in the museum is a huge achievement. But is there anything she hasn't got?

"I'm proudest of the outfits - especially the ones worn by Mel B," says Liz. "I'd obviously love to get hold of Geri's Union Jack dress, and I'd like a set of outfits worn by all five girls at the same time."

The exhibition runs at the museum until July and Liz is keen to take her collection to other museums across the country to share her love of Girl Power with more Spice fans. For now though, Helen and her team here in Leeds are delighted to play host.
"We hope to bring people in to see something they easily recognise, then hopefully they'll walk across the corridor to go to the Ancient World gallery and learn about something they didn't know about. "

It's an exhibition that has something for everyone. For the Spice Fan, there are facts, memories and music galore. For the sons and daughters of the Spice Fans out there, this is an interactive exhibition. Pull a cord to listen to a best selling track, dress up and take to the stage to sing Wannabee, or simply take a seat and enjoy the Spice World Movie. If you're not a fan when you walk in, you will be when you leave!