Spice up your life: Inside the V&A's Spice Girls exhibition
Two decades after they brought us ‘Girl Power’ and momentarily took over the world, a new exhibition pays tribute to the Spice Girls. From tracksuits to platforms, takes a look.
I’ll tell you what I want, what I really, really want… are they going to reunite? Tour in 2018? Do a concert in September to mark the 20th anniversary of their sell-out Wembley show? Will it be scuppered by any individual Spice refusing to join in, and if so, which one? Who still loathes whom? Is Posh too posh being a fashion designer to prance about on stage?
Baby is keen. “Just performing with the girls again gets me excited,” she told HuffPost.
“For sure we are,” Mel B said on Loose Women of their possible reunion.
One certainty is that if the Spice Girls do reunite, there will be a ticket stampede, as all their tween fangirls, now adult women with bank accounts, compete for a chance to rush down memory lane.
Meanwhile, 20 years after five became four, London is hosting an exhibition, SpiceUp, which promises all things Ginger, Sporty, Scary, Baby, and Posh. Between now and August 20, you can check out a plethora of Spice stuff, and if you’re really keen, jump on an open-top bus tour that will take you around London to show you Spice-related locations while listening to Spice hits and history. After that, the SpiceUp exhibition will begin touring, starting in Manchester. Spicetastic.
It began “as a bit of a pipedream” in 2016 when superfan Alan Smith-Allison launched a SpiceUp exhibition in Cyprus. “Seeing how colourful and vibrant all of the costumes and memorabilia looked together, I knew we had to take the exhibition further and get more costumes and collections involved,” he says.
The actual Spice Girls themselves — now Spice Fortysomethings — are not involved, but have given their blessing. The exhibition is a labour of intense love by its curator; Smith-Allison has gathered an extensive collection of stage outfits, and a tonne of what the exhibition is calling Spice memorabilia, but what is actually Spice marketing. And wow, how the Spice Girls excelled at marketing.
The 7,000 items include cans of Pepsi, Walkers crisps, Girl Power dolls, individual dolls, dress up dolls, rag dolls, mugs, plates, temporary tattoos, balloons, chocolate selection boxes, Easter eggs, lollipops, body spray, shampoo, make up, backpacks, pretend mobile phones, kids’ bicycles, adult mopeds, karaoke microphones, duvet covers, pillow cases, wallpaper, teddy bears, lunch boxes, flasks, t-shirts, posters, beanbags, shoulder bags, stationery, cameras, paper cups, hair brushes, Christmas crackers, men’s ties, dressing up costumes, jigsaws, transistor radios — the Spice brand stamped itself on everything that could possibly be sold to young fans high on girl power back in the ’90s.
The outfits are here too, 300 of them, although not the iconic Union Jack dress worn by Geri Halliwell, which apparently began life as a tea towel. Instead there are Sporty tracksuits, Posh little black dresses, Scary leopardskin, Baby platforms, and quite a few garments emblazoned with Girl Power — you can trace their success from the hammy homemade-looking items early on in their trajectory to the sleeker, more expensive costumes made for them by professional designers. There are even slightly creepy bits of nylon hair extensions.
The footwear is the most recognisably ’90s aspect of the exhibition, particularly the Buffalos currently enjoying a moment being worn by Generation Z, not yet born when the Spice Girls were at their height. And what height they reached on their towering glittery boots although Posh eschewed blocky platforms for the more precarious high heel that, until recently, became, along with a reluctance to smile, her trademark.
It’s easy to forget, amid the acres of merchandising tat and outfits which up close are a bit shoddy, just how gigantically successful the Spice Girls were during their heyday. They sold 55m albums, had nine number ones (as many as Abba), and were the fastest selling British act since the Beatles. From their first number one in 1996 — ‘Wannabe’ — to closing the London Olympic ceremony in 2012, they were the most successful female pop group ever, with a string of candyfloss hits and a powerful public image.
Apart from Adele, who herself was a massive Spice Girls fan as a child, they were the only female act to ever sell out Wembley Stadium. Simon Cowell is still kicking himself for turning them down. Simon Fuller got them instead.
It was not the Spice Girls’ music — frothy, featherlight pop — which made them such a phenomenon. Abba and Beatles comparisons refer strictly to sales, not content. So what made them so huge? What was it about five ordinary girls that saw them temporarily take over the world?
Their appeal lay in a confluence of factors. First, the group’s structure — five individuals in a girl gang, like Charlie’s Angels but without a man telling them what to do, or like the Sex and the City friendships, but fun and ordinary. They were entirely accessible, girls next door made good. We’re just like you, you can be like us, all you need is girl power. In an era long before #MeToo, they were all about doing it for yourself, breaking convention (like when they kissed royalty on the cheek instead of curtseying), having a laugh, being in charge.
Before we had screens to reflect ourselves back to ourselves, the Spice Girls briefly fulfilled this function by embodying divergent aspects of girlhood — fierce, cheeky, cute, healthy, sexy — and beaming it back to an enthusiastic girl-filled audience. They were about female connection, celebration, unity, and fun; they had something for everyone, and everyone had their favourite spice. They were irreverent, like Bananarama, but shinier and more tween-focused; you could imagine hanging out with them without being intimidated.
The Spice Girls were archetypal BFFs forever, until they weren’t — but even Geri Halliwell’s departure, cleverly managed with the release of soppy goodbye songs, didn’t put fans off. Since then there has been a reunion in 2007, another in 2012, yet another in 2016 but without Posh or Sporty, a Spice Girls musical, several documentaries, and a greatest hits album. And now, another reunion? With all five Spices?
WHAT THE SPICE GIRLS DID NEXT:
Four solo albums, several children’s books, autobiographies, two documentaries, two children (Bluebell Madonna, Montgomery George Hector), rumours of conversion to Christianity.
Solo releases, acting, reality shows, judging on The X Factor, America’s Got Talent, Australia’s Got Talent, disastrous relationships, lead role in the musical Chicago, three children (Phoenix, Angel, Madison).
Television and radio work including a cameo in Absolutely Fabulous, a children’s clothing range for Argos, two children (Beau, Tate).
Platinum selling solo releases, her own record label, extensive solo touring, judging on Asia’s Got Talent, clinical depression, one child (Scarlet).
Cringey attempts at solo musical career, followed by a successful ongoing career as a fashion designer. Four children (Brooklyn, Romeo, Cruz, Harper). Famous husband.
- SpiceUp Exhibition, Business Design Centre, London, until August 20.
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