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Madame Tussauds has been turning familiar faces into wax sculptures for nearly 200 years. In the iconic museum you can get your photo taken with Taylor Swift, the late Queen, and now, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan.
Sculpture is a tricky medium. Not everyone is a Michelangelo, and when recreating a 3D likeness of someone goes wrong it can go really wrong and end up looking like a child’s drawing of the model rather than a carbon copy of their face. Ending up in the wax-uncanny valley is a risk Madame Tussauds takes every time it brings a new statue into the world, but the institution has definitely struck gold this time.
When the mayor stands very still next to his waxwork, you only have a 50 percent chance of guessing who’s who. From his navy blue tie-less suit to the half-ponder half-grimace on his face, they’ve really got him to a tee.
‘I’m worried now that Anthony Joshua and Stormzy are going to be jealous that everyone is coming to my waxwork and not theirs,’ Khan confessed. He explained that he had to sit for a few hours while the Tussauds team worked their magic and created a 360 digital mockup of his body.
Sadiq, who was born and raised in Tooting to a British Pakistani family, hopes that tourists seeing his effigy will learn a bit about his life and ‘realise that it’s the London story.’
Khan will join the ‘Cultural Capital’ area of the museum, standing aside icons like Princess Diana, Stormzy, and David Attenborough. We’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation.
The sculpture took its spot in Madame Tussauds on Wednesday (July 31), and will be there for the foreseeable future. You can grab your tickets to meet Sadiq in the (not) flesh here.
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