“It wasn't that difficult to convince people to lend us objects because it's the V&A,” curator Jacqueline Springer tells me as we stand in the brand-new V&A East Museum. After all, people's willingness to loan—and even donate—personal objects has made the V&A one of the most influential collections in the world.

Now, London's most exciting new museum in recent memory has finally opened. It's the latest V&A space in the capital, part of a lineage that began with the Victoria and Albert Museum , which opened in 1857 as the South Kensington Museum. Since then, the V&A’s collection has expanded into something many directors could only dream of, with artifacts spanning centuries on rotation behind sparkling cabinets. Naturally, a plethora of treasures requires adequate space.…