Amy Winehouse is, obviously, an icon. 

Emblazoned into our memories is a figure, beneath a flash of light, a teetering leopard-print clad explosion of a voice. For half a decade or so she burned very bright, and then, quite suddenly, was gone forever. 

Winehouse remains one of the most recognisable singer-songwriters in recent living history. Her legacy eclipses the modest, normal girl behind it. Amy: Beyond the Stage pulls back the curtain to reveal the person behind the voice.

The exhibition opens with a glimpse of Amy’s early years. It feels almost like returning to your own teenage bedroom. Photographs of Amy’s early years plaster the walls. There’s a family photograph of her uncles and her grandfather. Her formal invitation to interview at Sylvia Young can be seen, advising her, and her mum Janis, to be on time as the interview cannot be rescheduled. To do lists adorn the walls. Handwritten lyrics to unpublished and now forever unknowable songs scribbled onto lined papers are pinned up. Her voice beams through them. She dots her eyes with hearts.

The exhibition features outfits from iconic performances, lyrics, personal effects, videos, interviews and other items lent by The Estate of Amy Winehouse which waived its rights to royalties in favour of the Amy Winehouse Foundation. The exhibits collectively trace her early years from recordings and confessions in teenage notebooks right through to her life in Camden and the influences in her life of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Dinah Washington. Her Daphne Fender Stratocaster guitar hangs behind a case. A collection of outfits from some of her most iconic performances are grouped in front of a large screen showing them. Handwritten lyrics to some of her most famous hits, as well as those that would never be heard, are on show. 

In addition to her own, voices from her life at that time are also present. Mark Ronson reflects on the New York stroll that spawned ‘Rehab’, while in another corner of the exhibition, a grinny Jonathan Ross can be seen grilling Amy, in an unmissable nod to the early noughties obsession with the pre-programmed polished female pop product, Ross reflects on Amy’s self-assuredness and the fact that she writes and sings her own songs. He retorts that he’s glad he’s not her ex-boyfriend, the break-up with whom influenced the piercing lyrics of Frank, directly referencing ‘you my ladyboy’. Her magnetism shows how the men around her, as much as the media, can’t get enough of her. For those, like me, whose formative years coincided with her ascent, it becomes clear that the more they, and the male gaze of the media, pull on and vie for her, the more it would drag her down. The exhibition concludes with a rapturous immersive multi-media expression of her last ever performance of Tears Dry On Their Own. This finale captures her essence and her spirit. You get the sense that she truly is there, if only for a moment. And then the curtain comes up, and she’s gone, and you’re left with her things, and a sense that for a fleeting moment there something really special happened.

Each of us, in all of our lives, collect things. A treasured notebook, a favourite lipstick, a particular bag. We spend so much time with our things. Our things are there for those important decisions, those heady nights, those laughs, those sobs. It’s possible that little pieces of us rub off on them too. This exhibition is a scattered collection of the things that Amy surrounded herself with; the things that she held and that held her. On the one hand, Amy: Beyond the Stage feels deeply invasive. The urge to recoil, hand back the ticket and turn away from it is strong. In a way, the exhibition forces us on another level to confront our own mortality; what makes us, and what we leave behind. 

They say you should never meet your idols. But I’m not entirely sure why. Amy: Beyond the Stage is a momentary glimpse at the person behind the legend; it’s a perfectly curated celebration of the places, people and things that made her Amy, and of the things she made back. Exhibitions like this show how she continues to make and shape us all.

Amy: Beyond the Stage is on at the Design Museum until 10 April 2022 - For more details and ticket information visit the site here.