DATS Dress and Textiles Specialists

Spring Journal 2013

Contents Page

Committee 3

2012 Annual Conference - Papers 5

2013 Annual Conference – date for your diary 42

News 42

Exhibitions & Events 44

New Books 51

Cover Images: Wicked Queen from Savage Style: Clothes from Lily’s Wardrobe, (Image courtesy of National Museums Liverpool)

Hardy Amies for Hepworth’s three piece wool suit. This suit was designed as part of the ‘Future’ collection for Hepworth’s centenary fashion show, 1964. (LEEDM.S.1979.21.3) (Image courtesy of Leeds Museums and Galleries)

HMP Wandsworth Quilt, T. 27-2010, (Image courtesy of V&A Museum)

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DATS Committee 2013

Chair Secretary Christine Stevens Rebecca Quinton e-mail [email protected] Curator, European Costume and Textiles Glasgow Museums Burrell Collection 2060 Pollokshaws Road Glasgow G43 1AT Tel: 0141 287 2571 (Wednesday - Friday) Email: [email protected]; [email protected]

Treasurer Membership Secretary Danielle Sprecher c/o Leeds Museums and Galleries Discovery Centre Membership queries to Carlisle Road Caroline Whitehead Leeds LS10 1LB Email: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]

Newsletter Editor Web Editor Alex Ward Kate Reeder Assistant Keeper Social History Curator Art and Industrial Division Beamish North of England Open Air Museum National Museum of Ireland Beamish Collins Barracks Co. Durham DH9 0RG Dublin 7 Ireland Tel: 0191 370 4009 Tel: 00 353 1 6486469 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]

SSN Officer London and National Museums Representative Jenny Lister Beatrice Behlen Curator, 19th Century Textiles and Fashion Senior Curator, Fashion and Decorative Arts Department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Museum of London Victoria & Albert Museum 150 London Wall South Kensington London EC2Y 5HN London SW7 2RL e-mail: [email protected] Tel: 020 7942 2665 e-mail: [email protected]

Conservation Representative South East England Representative Ann French Veronica Issac Conservator (Textiles) Curatorial Assistant The Whitworth Art Gallery Department of Theatre and Performance University of Manchester Victoria & Albert Museum Oxford Road South Kensington Manchester M15 6ER London SW7 2RL Tel: 0161 275 7485 e-mail: [email protected] e-mail: [email protected]

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Wales and West England Representative North of England Representative Paula Martin Caroline Whitehead Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] House & Collections Manager National Trust Arlington Court and the National Trust Carriage Museum Tel: 01271 851129

Central England Representative Scotland Representative Althea Mackenzie Rebecca Quinton Hereford Heritage Services Curator, European Costume and Textiles Museum Learning and Resource Centre Glasgow Museums 58 Friar Street Burrell Collection Hereford HR4 0AS 2060 Pollokshaws Road Tel: 01432 383033 Glasgow G43 1AT Email: [email protected]; Tel: 0141 287 2571 (Wednesday - Friday) [email protected]; Email: [email protected]

Ireland Representative Valerie Wilson Curator (Textiles), Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, Cultra Holywood Co. Down BT18 0EU Tel: 028 9039 5167 Email: [email protected]

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Conference Papers 2012

The theme of the DATS Autumn Conference 2012 was Practical Partnerships: Getting the most out of creative collaborations. It was held at the Burrell Collection, Glasgow.

A Collaborative PhD Project - Fashion for the High Street: The design and making of menswear in Leeds 1945-1980, a synopsis Natalie Raw, Costume and Textiles Curator, Leeds Museums and Galleries and Danielle Sprecher, PhD Research Student

Natalie Raw introduced the collaborative PhD project which was developed with Katrina Honeyman from the University of Leeds. The project was designed to build on the strengths of the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections relating to Leeds clothing production – men’s tailoring in the post-World War II period – and Katrina’s extensive research into the tailoring industry.

The Hepworths Centenary Fashion Show, 1964

Exploring aspects of research undertaken for the PhD project, Danielle Sprecher’s paper focused on the celebration of the centenary of the Leeds multiple tailor, Joseph Hepworth & Son in 1964. The feature of the commemoration was a lavish fashion show orchestrated by the couturier Hardy Amies which presented Hepworth’s as a company with a rich past and a fashionable present and future. Research drew on the collections of Leeds Museums and Galleries including suits, company publications and photographs alongside press coverage of the centenary fashion show. The paper argued that this event showcases important issues in the history of fashion and masculinity by highlighting Hepworth’s innovative adoption of feminine rituals of fashion promotion such as the fashion show; the rise of the fashion designer in the provision of fashionable clothing to a mass consumer market; and the complexity of men’s gendered relationship with fashion.

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My Mill: My Heritage, Margaret Chalmers, ULITA

This project, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), ran for a period of two years and built on relationships and collaborations forged in a previous project between the University

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of Leeds International Textiles Archive (ULITA) and Education Leeds, South Leeds City Learning Centre (SLCLC), schools and community groups.

“My Mill: My Heritage” involved seventy four participants from two high schools, one special educational needs school, an Asian ladies’ group, and a group of ladies with visual impairment. The groups were supported by a staff of nine, drawn from SLCLC and ULITA, and a specialist industry tutor, a support mentor, and five volunteers from the Access Academy of the University of Leeds. Further support was given by the owners and staff of the manufacturing mill, and officers and staff of the Museums, Schools and groups involved.

The project had seven phases:

 The introduction of the project and the mill visit phase to research ideas, record visual images and interviews, and to learn about the history of the mill and the surrounding area  The workshop phase where participants’ ideas were developed using various media.  The production phase where video diaries were edited, and final designs agreed and the work carried out to produce the wall hangings.  The travelling exhibition phase where the hangings and video diaries were on view to the public in various locations.  The return phase where the hangings were returned to their creators.  The resources phase where a pack for teachers, DVD, and web content were produced.  Evaluation.

The presentation described the project, its organisation, and highlighted some of the difficulties encountered in the collaboration, and emphasised the many positive outcomes and benefits for those who took part.

The groups were made fully aware from the outset of the range of the project and the expected commitment and outcomes – a textile wall hanging, sketch- and sample books, and a video diary. Discussions with each group highlighted availability, transport, and varied practical difficulties, which were addressed in consultation with them, and amendments made to the workshop schedules. Two schools withdrew as they felt it was not possible to commit further.

During the project, the groups became more cohesive; the ladies discovered several of them had worked in mills, while other ladies’ parents had come to the area as immigrants, and found work in the mills. Recollections and reminiscences were exchanged, and some recorded.

The school students discovered how to discuss, plan to a deadline, and negotiate the design and manufacture of their wall hanging with their colleagues, rather than playing solitary computer games. They also enjoyed learning some of the crafts they had seen “at granny’s”, and started talking about the project at home. The school students were amazed at the noise in the mill, the working conditions, and the small houses for the mill workers.

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Some of the schools took the opportunity to upskill teachers not directly involved in the project, because of the students’ enthusiasm.

The younger participants were IT users, while the ladies were more familiar with traditional craft skills, both by hand and machine. The project gave both groups access to, and instruction in, an alternative skill set, in addition to photography techniques, image editing, and video and sound track production. The visually impaired ladies also found new ways of enjoying crafts they had given up on, because of loss of sight, and felt “useful” and “were working together towards an end result, not just filling in time making things”.

Access Academy students provided valuable assistance during the workshops and visits. They benefitted by working with different ages and abilities, learned new skills, and added to their CVs.

The project also allowed the participants access to specialist mentors, equipment, such as the high tech media editing suite at SLCLC, and to places they might otherwise not access, or be likely to visit. The University of Leeds, the mills and museums all benefited from an increased footfall both by the groups, and by members of the public, friends and family visiting the travelling exhibition.

There was an educational impact; website links and teacher packs were created, and the mill and museum staff answered a veritable barrage of questions!

Timetabling was a difficulty, and ideal solutions were sometimes hard to find for a variety of reasons.

Longer workshop sessions would have been beneficial also.

We would also have liked to arrange more dialogue between the groups to compare their experiences, but this was not possible. The young students could have learned at first hand from some of the ladies just how tough life was in the mills, both for women and for children of their age.

As can be seen, there were many positive outcomes for all the collaborators; structured planning allowed the groups to research history local to their area, learn many new skills, and produce a valuable heritage legacy for others to enjoy.

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Notes on the West Yorkshire Textile Heritage Project, Katina Bill, Kirklees Museums and Galleries

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West Yorkshire Textile Heritage Project put together by Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield Museums and Gallery services. A grant of approx £73,000 from the Esmee Fairburn Collections Trust through the Museums Association, was awarded last December.

The project context.background : WY and its textile heritage. West Yorkshire made up of Kirklees, Calderdale, Bradford, Wakefield and Leeds. Textile production in the region is hugely important historically and still has a significant economic presence and impact. As any O level history student knows, it has a highly suitable environment for textile production:  Hilly  fast flowing streams  soft water  sheep  coal  millstone grit

Wool production active since the 1300s. showed growth from the 1500s and by the C18th there was a substantial cottage industry. The industrial revolution of the early C19th saw production moved to large factories, followed by the development of towns and cities, along with the rise of supporting and related industries and economies  distribution  engineering  chemical industries  clothing manufacture  shoddy industry recycling woollen rags

This had a substantial impact on the built environment, the economy and the character of Yorkshire people and much of this is still apparent today. Towns such as Huddersfield only exist because of the textile industry and they are full of large mill buildings, (Dean Clough, Salts Mill). Some of these are still working mills, some have been converted to other purposes, such as arts, retail and residential, but some are abandoned and at risk.

The countryside also reflects the industry’s presence, with pack horse trails, weavers cottages, the remains of scribbling and fulling mills and even in the road and field names.

The contemporary economy and culture are coloured by the textile industry. There are many craftspeople, artists and makers working in cloth. The local colleges and universities have a strong history of training in textiles and continue to teach weaving, printing and design and they produce award winning textile students. The industry is still active with

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some major factories still operating, as well as trade organisations like the Bradford Textile Society and the Clothworkers Company.

The local museums of course have substantial collections of pattern books, machinery and other material. This is supplemented by independent museums, archives services, universities collections and company archives.

But for the visitor or researcher, or indeed the local resident, can be confusing. There are textile galleries at some of the museums, but they only show the tip of the iceberg collections wise. Pattern books and samples not easy to display. And it is hard to make connections between sample/pattern books and, say, rural.

Project Aims To improve access to WY textile heritage and to raise the profile of textile heritage in WY. Its aimed at locals, tourists, researchers and enthusiasts.

Documentation work and collection reviews at each partner service plus a review of regional collections in general to gain a better sense of what we have and the broader context, and to identify gaps.

Creation of some kind of single IT gateway for access that will provide an historical overview, present collection highlights, which will include other collections, such as at independent museums and provide links to fuller listings where they exist and sources of further info.

Create some kind of textiles trail, hosted by Welcome to Yorkshire, which will promote our museums, and feature other textile related sites, such as museums, working mills, converted visitor centres, notable architectural sites, and at risk sites. It is hoped to build active business partnerships and get sponsorship. Welcome to Yorkshire have a great deal of experience and success in this area

Online trail will be supported by leaflets for walks and trails which will explain the important features of what can been seen whether it’s a pack horse bridge, a weaver’s cottage or a tenter field. There is also the possibility of some kind of in the field interpretation. Expect to work with local walking groups on these. development of sustainable links and partnership working between museums, the textile industry and textile enthusiasts.

Partnership working Partnerships are fundamental to the project. The four board members are working with Welcome to Yorkshire and English Heritage. The project also aims to form sustainable working partnerships with educational, commercial and independent heritage organisations.

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The Board Partnership didn’t come out of the blue. All the 4 museum have had some kind of working relationship. They are adjacent authorities and are aware of each other’s collections and services and all have had contact before.

But there have been problems. Everything has moved more slowly. Just getting four busy people across 4 organisations to meet together not easy. There is no one boss, no-one is in charge. Everyone hopes someone else will do stuff. Everything happens by consensus, and no-one makes a decision without consulting the others. Each organisation has less sense of ownership or is clear that everything it is for their benefit. Each is less aware of the pressures that other members have and fear they are putting time to someone else’s project.

Employing staff as a Partnership The bulk of the grant funding is to bring in additional staff, who are working for the board as a whole. This presents a whole new set of problems.

Initially planned to appoint a contractor to deliver the project. They would carry risks such as sickness absence, could work from home or their own office, rather than taking up space at one of our sites, they would provide their own equipment for use across services, they would deal with any issues of travelling between sites.

But it was an unusual contract and it was not possible to appoint a contractor. It was decided instead to appoint a project manager and a project assistant, with Calderdale acting as the lead organisation to employ them.

It is important to ensure that that is parity of input and output - that all partners get an equal share of collections work and they all contribute in a fair way. Communication and file sharing is another issue. The two new employees may need a login and email account with each service.

Where will the project manager be based when engaged on project-wide work? They will have to be at one of the sites but the others may resent this, and they will need to access information from all services, wherever they are working.

Sustainability post project may be a problem, particularly the question of who will maintain the website, on site interpretation, etc.

Benefits But despite all these issues, the benefits will outweigh the problems: partners will provide access to a wider range of skills: i.e., Welcome to Yorkshire’s business partnerships, local knowledge of walking groups. Each member’s collections will be set in a wider context that

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gives a fuller understanding of their significance. The inclusion of active industries, retail outlets, craft groups and makers will show that textiles are not just history, but something alive, vibrant and relevant to today. ____

Creativity and Confinement: Narrating the HMP Wandsworth Quilt, Sue Prichard, Curator, Furniture, Textiles & Fashion Victoria & Albert Museum & Lead Curator Quilts 1700-2010

Quilt making is perhaps the most accessible of all domestic crafts – and one which is inextricably linked with a female narrative. Of course, over the centuries men have been involved in the design and making of quilts, yet the process of making, whether in professional workshops or in the home, are rarely recorded in diaries or letters. Often quilts are passed down through generations undocumented, although some are accompanied by oral histories and personal narratives; over the years the names and dates become confused and stories embellished. Yet the potency of the voice from the past is sometimes more powerful than the evidence revealed by close examination of the textiles used by the makers.

In 2010, the Victoria & Albert Museum held a major exhibition of British patchwork and quilts ‘Quilts 1700-2010’. Subtitled ‘Hidden Histories, Untold Stories’, the exhibition sought to navigate a path through the myths and misconceptions surrounding quilt making, and showcased quilts as complex objects, which resonate with multi layered references open to numerous interpretations. Exploring over 300 years of British quilt making, the exhibition drew on the Museum’s unique holdings of historic quilts and bed covers and included new work from contemporary artists and practitioners

Drawing on the strengths of the historic collection, the exhibition focused on five thematic sections, arranged chronologically but with contemporary work embedded with each section, thus inviting a dialogue between the past and the present. The last section of the exhibition ‘Memory and Memorial’ explored the ability of everyday objects to communicate highly personal messages and memories. A key element of this section was the link between creativity and confinement, and included loans from other museums including ‘The Changi Girl Guide Coverlet’ (1943) from the Imperial War Museum and ‘The HMS Rajah Quilt’ (1841) from the National Gallery of Australia. This section also included a new commission made in collaboration with the charity Fine Cell Work and the men of HM Prison Wandsworth, which drew parallels ‘The Rajah Quilt’ and with the prison reformer Elizabeth Fry’s assertion that needlework can be used as a tool for the rehabilitation of prisoners.

‘Formerly, patchwork occupied much of the time of the women confined to Newgate, as it still does that of the female convicts on the voyage to New South Wales. It is an exceptional

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mode of employing the women, if no other work can be procured for them, and is useful as a means of teaching them the art of sewing.’

The British Ladies’ Society for the Reformation of Female Prisoners (formed 1820) supplied the sewing materials required to make ‘The Rajah Quilt’, the only known transportation quilt in a public collection, stitched by some of the 180 women on board HMS Rajah, which set sail from Woolwich for Van Dieman’s land in 1841. Constructed from 2,815 pieces of fabric, the quilt is inscribed in silk thread:

TO THE LADIES

OF THE

Convict Ship Committee

This quilt worked by the convicts

Of the ship Rajah during their voyage

To Van Dieman’s Land is presented as a

Testimony of the gratitude with which

They remember their exertions for their

Welfare while in England and during

Their passage and also as a proof that

They have not neglected the Ladies

Kind admonitions of being industrious

June 1841

Fine Cell Work provides materials and volunteers to enable prisoners to learn and practice embroidery in their cells. The resulting cushions, quilts, rugs and tapestries are of the highest quality and include designs by Celia Birtwell, Nina Campbell, Allegra Hicks, Jasper Conran, Melissa Wyndham and Cath Kidson. Prisoners are allowed to keep some of the proceeds, to spend inside or save until they have completed their sentence. In 2008, more than 400 jailed stitchers, 80 per cent of them male, earned a total of £61,890 through Fine Cell Work, which operates in 26 British prisons. For many the true value of the charity lies not in the money earned, but in the therapeutic effects gained from the hand and eye co- ordination.

In 1960 the prison reformer Lady Anne Tree, whose late husband was Director of the interior design company Colefax and Fowler, encouraged a group of women serving life sentences in Holloway Prison to make two large needlepoint rugs – the idea that prisoners might spend their time making something useful, beneficial and attractive took root, and

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Fine Cell Work became a registered charity in 1995. Currently, over fifty volunteer instructors, many of whom are members of the Embroiderers’ Guild, or graduates of the Royal School of Needlework, train prisoners in a variety of sewing techniques. This level of expertise, the commitment of many of the (mostly female) volunteers and the ethos of the charity’s philanthropic work formed the basis of the collaboration between the inmates of HMP Wandsworth, Fine Cell Work and the V&A.

A prison population is one of the most diverse communities you are likely to encounter, some inmates were highly articulate, well read and with the occasional Phd. Otherwise possessed a ready knowledge and wit yet confided that they were unable to read or write. Some had never set foot in a museum; others had never heard of the V&A and were unable to grasp the concept of an exhibition of something as mundane as quilts. Initially the project focused on building trust – both with prisoners and volunteers – and communicating the curatorial vision of the exhibition. On one occasion, permission was required from the prison authorities to take in a historic quilt from the V&A’s permanent collection for a teaching session. A number of subsequent afternoons were devoted to powerpoint presentations of quilts included in the exhibition, including the HMS Rajah Quilt. Frustratingly, it seemed impossible to generate a design for the planned quilt, despite inspiration from such extraordinary examples as the ‘Ann West Coverlet’ (T.23-2007) and ‘George III Reviewing the Troops’ (T.9-1962). After much deliberation and debate, one prisoner suggested a design based on the panopticon layout of HMP Wandsworth itself, originally conceived by the eighteenth century social reformer Jeremy Bentham. Unfortunately, the design was seized from the individual’s cell and confiscated as an intended plan of escape before being returned to the safe keeping of the Fine Cell volunteers. In addition to providing an unique and apt starting point for the project, the central ‘hub’ of the converging wings of the panopticon was hextagonal, the traditional template of the popular 19th century British patchwork pattern ‘Grandmother’s Garden’.

The project was not without its challenges, some were concerned that ‘lifers’ or those serving long term sentences were too institutionalised and incapable of undertaking such a creative initiative. Retaining a suitable group of stitchers was also problematic; Wandsworth is a remand prison, and as such long term inmates are often moved from one institution to another to accommodate prisoners who need to be kept close to the court at which they will be tried. Despite such movement (over 60 men contributed to the quilt, with only one seeing the project through from start to finish), a workable team was established.

Surprisingly, few problems arose after the initial slow start however five patches went missing when the man who was stitching the kantha work on them was deported unexpectedly and at short notice. Luckily the volunteers had taken photographs of all the designs and were able to recreate them with another prisoner. Initially the patches were created from officers’ uniform fabric, however this made the overall design too dark and

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calico was substituted instead. It quickly became apparent that there were too many hexagonals for the intended quilt and a selection committee was formed, consisting of two volunteers, three prisoners, and the curatorial team (Sue Prichard and Claire Smith). Contributors to the quilt were adamant that they wanted not only the best examples of their sewing skills but also images and text that most accurately reflected their lives. One hexagon was embroidered with the figure of a prisoner kneeling with his hands shackled behind his back. This was immediately discarded with the comment ‘Wandsworth is not Guantanamo Bay’. Accepted patches included a caged bird, an intricately worked finger- print surrounded by DNA, a crush of bodies and a pair of Nike trainers – reflecting the fact that shoes are the one item of clothing the men can choose, and Nike is a much prized commodity. Some had no images, only text ‘I will go home’, ‘I didn’t do it Guv! Honest!’ A patch reflecting the large number of ex-servicemen, ill equipped to deal with civilian life, and currently serving time in prison was initially rejected as not communicating the issue effectively. The beautifully stitched spitfire airplane was replaced by a stark yet powerful text based patch ‘A New Home for Hero’s’. Additional patches were cut from prison sheeting and used to join the hexagons, when this ran out one volunteer raided her husband’s wardrobe for suiting fabric.

Once the selection of patches had been finalised, inmates and volunteers came together in a traditional ‘sewing bee’, stitching together the various component parts. During the process, the Fine Cell Work project manager interviewed the men and recorded their thoughts about prison life generally and what the project meant to them. These comments were précised to one paragraph and stitched onto the background fabric. It reads:

The Wandsworth Quilt, commissioned by the V&A, is the work of many hands

It has given us the opportunity to discover our creativity

This work not only gave us great pride but also purpose while we are serving our time

We used our surroundings and feelings to come up with the ideas for the patches that go to make up the quilt

The stitching has kept us busy and has given us confidence, friendship and a sense of achievement

Because people supported us, we have supported others.

Finally, the reverse of the quilt featured a screen printed image of the prison entrance, painted by an inmate with the logo ‘Hand made in prison’. The quilt was finally delivered to the V&A in December 2009 by a core group of Fine Cell Work volunteers and handed over to the curatorial team, with members of the Friends of the V&A in attendance.

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The ‘HMP Wandsworth Quilt’ took over two and a half years to complete and was subsequently acquired by the V&A’s Furniture, Textile and Fashion Department for the permanent collection, through the generosity of the Friends of the V&A, who also sponsored ‘Quilts 1700-2010. Accompanied by a short documentary which gave a voice to some of the men who worked on the quilt in their cells, the quilt proved to be one of the highlights of the exhibition. The final word should perhaps belong to the inmate who was responsible for the final design of the quilt. ‘I’m guilty of a crime, and its right that I’m here … But I’d like people to know that there’s more to me than that.’

HMP Wandsworth Quilt and volunteers Image courtesy of the V&A Museum

Further reading:

Prichard, S. Creativity and Confinement in: Prichard, S (ed) Quilts 1700-2010: Hidden Histories, Untold Stories (London 2010)

Prichard, S. ‘Tis the season …..’ Quilts 1700-2010 Hidden Histories Untold Stories 2009 – 10 Curatorial Blog http://www.vam.ac.uk/b/blog/quilts-hidden-histories-untold-stories/tis-season Smith, C. Doing Time: Patchwork as a tool of social rehabilitation in British prisons. V&A On-line Journal, Issue No 1, Autumn 2008 http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue- 01/doing-time-patchwork-as-a-tool-of-social-rehabilitiation-in-british-prisons/

Websites http://www.finecellwork.co.uk/ http://nga.gov.au/rajahquilt/ _____

The conservation of archaeological fragments from the Sudan: a collaborative project between the British Museum and University of Glasgow, Anna Harrison, Senior Organic Artefacts Conservator, British Museum and Sarah Foskett, Conservation Tutor, University of Glasgow

Careful planning over several months prepared the way for a collaborative project in which MPhil textile conservation students from the University of Glasgow were given the opportunity to conserve archaeological textile fragments from the British Museum collection. The fragments, from the island of Kulubnarti in Northern Sudan, date from the seventh to ninth centuries AD and include pieces of clothing, cord and braid. This paper will outline the challenges of setting up the project and describe the textiles themselves. It will

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then briefly outline the structure of the MPhil Textile Conservation programme, and discuss how this project has been shaped to meet its requirements.

The whole collection, which includes wood, leather, basketry and over 200 textiles, was excavated from two Nubian cemetery sites in Kulubnarti, with the aim of “obtaining cultural information about Christian Nubian burial practices”. The excavations were undertaken in the 1960s and 1970s by William Y. and Nettie K. Adams and the objects were donated to the British Museum in 2005 by the W. S. Webb Museum of Anthropology, University of Kentucky. The textiles were documented in some detail by Nettie Adams, working with Elisabeth Crowfoot, and this work was published in 1999 in the series by the Sudan Archaeological Research Society on Kulubnarti (Adams et al.1999).

A small number of the textiles have already been conserved for temporary display at the British Museum. These include some fairly complete garments such as a finely woven loin- cloth made from wool, which was woven to shape. The shorter end is decorated with rows of twining and a fringe that would have hung down the front when worn. There are also three mats, made from human hair spun in an s-twist. These had been used to wrap the deceased, although worn areas and darned repairs made in a mixture of goat and human hair show that they were used for other purposes prior to burial. Another fragment of a bag made from goat hair is decorated with fringing wrapped at intervals with blue, green, red, yellow and purple wool; and a fragment of a rug (Fig. 1) is made from goat hair, sheep wool and camel wool, with a woven pattern of triangles and lines in different shades of brown and red. The textiles are evidence of a resourceful society, which wasted little and made good use of the materials available to them. Spindle whorls, needles and shuttles, also found, show that many of the textiles would have been locally made.

Fig. 1. Fragment of a rug from Kulubnarti Part of the collection consists of much smaller textile fragments, which are the subject of this collaboration. These were either part of the wrappings from around the bodies, or cords that held the wrappings in position. They vary widely in technique, colour, construction and condition (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. Photomicrograph showing a detail of a fragment composed of two different fabric types with a plied stitching thread

There are seams, original repair stitching, selvedges, and both natural and dyed colours present. The fragments are usually wool, in a plain weave, often weft-faced, although

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cotton has also been used for warps or as part of the cord structures. The cord or bindings are often a mixture of human hair and wool and vary considerably in thickness, composition and structure.

As received in the boxes in which they were donated, the textile fragments could not be safely handled or closely examined (Fig. 3). They were soiled with particulate dirt and staining from the grave environment and crumpled, so that it was not possible to see the shape and size of each piece. Given current demands on conservation resources at the British Museum, these fragments were unlikely to be conserved in the near future and were thus likely to remain in storage. Curatorial and conservation staff at the British Museum saw the opportunity for them to be made available to students: the process of examination, documentation and conservation would provide an excellent training opportunity and treatment of the fragments would be beneficial for their long term preservation and accessibility for study. The challenge for the students would be to propose and carry out appropriate treatments, taking into consideration ethical, practical and contextual issues. Thus, the collaboration with Glasgow University was pursued.

Fig. 3. Textile fragment, (EA78874) before conservation

During the initial planning stages of the project, the legal and practical aspects raised by the transfer and subsequent conservation of registered objects by another institution had to be addressed. As this specific project differs in many ways from loans for museum display, which are dealt with routinely at the Museum, it was necessary to draw up a document from first principles, the content of which was agreed by both institutions. The document covers security and storage, packing and transportation, insurance, division of costs, photography and publication issues, and the details of the agreed conservation work. It covers all aspects of the project and therefore also serves as an indicator of the aims and objectives which will be used to evaluate and measure its success. This will inform amendments and improvements to both the project and the agreement as the collaboration progresses. The document covers in much detail the specifics of the conservation work required by the Museum and issues that might be raised by this. This includes the format and extent of documentation and technical analysis required, sampling and protocols for the presence of human remains (British Museum, 2010), how far to take cleaning and humidification in order to facilitate understanding of the pieces, and requirements for future storage and accessibility. Whilst the project presents students with a great opportunity to gain hands-on experience of previously untreated archaeological textiles, this needs to be supported by clear guidance from the Museum regarding the extent and nature of the treatment required.

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In order to introduce the students to the project, Anna Harrison spent a day at Glasgow University, to discuss conservation at the Museum and the process of decision making in the treatment of objects. One important aspect of this visit was to set the students’ work within the wider context of the work of the Museum, with reference to a number of other collections that had recently been conserved and prepared for improved storage. These showed how slightly different approaches had been required to meet the particular and sometimes unique circumstances of different collections. Examples included material from waterlogged prehistoric Swiss Lake dwellings, dated to c.4000 to 500 BC. The nineteenth century mounts in which they were originally packed are now considered to be an integral part of their history, so these were retained and repacked safely in Plastazote recesses. However, this approach becomes slightly more problematic when the mounts are broken or failing and therefore putting the textile at risk of further damage. An example of this comes from the Sutton Hoo burial textiles. These fragments, mainly wool, come from the early seventh century ship burial. It was decided to remove these from their mid-twentieth century glass mounts, which had largely failed and were putting the textiles at risk. The fragments have now been laid on padded boards or placed in suitable recesses inside stackable polypropylene boxes. Another current project has involved conservators, conservation mounters and collections care staff devising a mounting system to allow safe access to the Andean textile collection. Many of the textiles are extremely fragile and fragmentary and so a standardised stackable card folder has been developed to allow access to both sides without touching the textiles themselves.

In this context of the wider work of the Museum, Glasgow students had the opportunity to ask about the specific issues that are likely to arise whilst conserving the Kulubnarti fragments. An important part of the collaboration is the continuing link between the University and the Museum, and the students will be able to have contact both with Anna Harrison regarding conservation issues and Julie Anderson (the curator in the Department of Ancient Egypt and Sudan responsible for these textiles) on any curatorial questions that arise. Thorough planning was equally important from the University of Glasgow’s training perspective. Early in the project Sarah Foskett visited the British Museum to meet Julie Anderson and plan the project in detail. It was essential that Sarah had the opportunity to gain an insight into the scope of the project and to see the textiles themselves at that stage of the planning. This proved stimulating and productive as there was time to begin choosing some of the textiles, selecting and discussing which are appropriate to the students’ experience and ability at that stage in their training.

The MPhil Textile Conservation at the University of Glasgow is a two-year professional education programme in the care and conservation of textile artefacts. It is the successor to the MA Textile Conservation offered by the Textile Conservation Centre (TCC) at the University of Southampton and before that Hampton Court Palace. The programme aims to give graduates a strong foundation on which to build throughout their careers. This includes four separate elements: firstly, the development of manual skills and core techniques; secondly, an understanding of the science underpinning interventive and preventive treatments; and thirdly, an understanding of the world in which conservators operate, including the ethical basis of conservation. These come together to form the basis of the fourth element, the development of judgement and decision-making skills, the driver of all conservation activity (Lennard, 2012). This is achieved through 12 core courses, three in

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each semester, an integral work placement at the end of the first year and a dissertation, submitted at the end of the second academic year. The courses are designed to be both complementary, synergistic and to promote ‘informed decision making’: the underlying philosophy of the programme. The programme currently has a maximum of eight students in each year with a diverse range of backgrounds, nationalities and experience.

Each semester has a ‘Principles and Practice’ course that over the two years teaches the fundamental techniques of textile conservation, from core skills and ethics to advanced projects.

The collaboration with the British Museum to treat the Sudanese archaeological textiles fits well within the first year of this course, complementing the existing projects and adding new dimensions to the intended learning outcomes. There is also scope for the project to present other valuable opportunities: for example for pairs or groups of students to work on larger pieces, and for more complex pieces to be researched and conserved by second year students. Furthermore it is hoped that the relationship with the curator and the museum will be strengthened through visits and discussion, and that a project blog might be developed.

For students, there are a number of learning outcomes expected from the project:

(1) To gain more experience of object documentation. In this project the role of the documentation is very important. After excavation, extensive and detailed technical analysis had already been undertaken by Nettie Adams, from which the students will be able to learn. Where information is revealed through the conservation treatment they will be able to add this to the existing records. They will also be required by the British Museum to ensure that the documentation conforms to its style and standard, and is a useful and usable record of the object and its treatment.

(2) To develop awareness and skill in the handling and examination of brittle and fragmentary textiles.

(3) To consolidate and expand their practical skills through object treatment. One of the most important skills for a conservator to learn is judgement. Gaining experience of the particular skills required to undertake these treatments on archaeological textiles will be invaluable to the development of judgement, specifically in:

 the extent and choice of technique for surface cleaning  developing suitable methods of humidification and gaining a practical understanding of the moisture response of archaeological textiles  appropriate methods of support and storage (Fig. 4).

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Fig. 4. Textile fragment (EA78874), after conservation in its new storage box

Although the brief will set the parameters for the project, each object still needs to be considered individually and a treatment strategy agreed. The students can gain much from individual discussions but also learn from their peers through information sharing and group discussions about issues and approaches.

Underpinning both the documentation and the treatment will be the ethical decisions inherent in the project. This is one of the most important and challenging aspects of the project, requiring the students to consider issues such as:

 What is the evidential value of the soiling and creasing?  How does condition influence the accessibility of objects – both in terms of their physical accessibility and their interpretation?  What is the importance of the hand written labelling as evidence of object biography?  What impact does the presence of traces of human remains, such as skin, have on the way objects are treated?

These are all issues that are discussed many times throughout the course. The value of the project is to give them a real, archaeological object focus and to be able to consider them within the ethical framework of the British Museum, with the input and guidance of an experienced curator and conservator.

On many levels this is a new venture for both institutions and as such brings opportunities and challenges. The principal challenge is ensuring that all aspects of the project are explicitly expressed in the brief and to make sure that they are addressed as the collaboration progresses. The wide range of issues that need to be detailed makes this a complex and time-consuming task. The principal opportunity is to establish a mutually beneficial collaboration, which has the potential to develop and grow into the long term. As well as gaining crucial theoretical and practical experience of archaeological textiles, students have the opportunity to get an insight into the motivations and working methods of a large institution. And for the British Museum this is a great opportunity to have some fascinating textiles conserved that might otherwise remain untreated; to add to existing knowledge about their collection; to gain experience in teaching and the organisation of such a project; and to maintain valuable links with colleagues at Glasgow University.

References ADAMS, W. Y., ADAMS, N. K., VAN GERVEN, D. P. & GREENE, D. L. 1999. Kulubnarti III The Cemeteries, London, Sudan Archaeological Research Society.

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BRITISH MUSEUM. British Museum Policy on Human Remains, [Online]. Available: https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/British-Museum-Human-Remains_August-2010.pdf [Accessed 13/03/13].

LENNARD, F. 2012. Textile Conservation Education in the UK. “exCHange for a challenge” in Higher Education for Restoration, Conservation and Risk Management of Works of Art, a cooperation project between Turkey and EU within the CSDII Programme March 1-3 , 2012, Kocaeli, Turkey [Online]. Available: http://exchange.kumid.net/conference.html#top [Accessed 13/03/13].

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Creating Opportunities for working with textile artists, Veronica Main, Significant Collections Curator, Luton Culture – Museums

Luton Culture is a charitable trust that maintains Libraries, Arts and Museums on behalf of Luton Borough Council. We have two museums: Stockwood Discovery Centre and Wardown Park Museum. Working as a Cultural Trust provides opportunities for staging textile interventions in a range of unconventional and challenging spaces. These opportunities stretch a curator’s traditional skills and encourage the development of new approaches.

Our approach

Like many medium-size museums we face tough financial realities whilst striving to continually deliver high standards. We do not have large exhibition budgets although we do occasionally book touring exhibition. We endeavour to develop creative ways of filling spaces with displays that will:

 Increase visitor numbers  Increase our visibility within the arts/craft world  Surprise and challenge concepts

We have limited display spaces. I use conventional display cases, when they are available, for commissioned displays that will fit the space. For larger objects I locate unconventional spaces within galleries where the objects can be on open display. When open display was first suggested staff feared that there would be security issues, particularly since we were not able to increase invigilation in those areas. We have been delighted to find that despite our high visitor numbers (Stockwood Discovery Centre around 210,000 a year, including a high proportion of children and 60,000 at Wardown Park Museum) nothing has been damaged or stolen. There seems to be a respect for the contemporary work, and appreciation that it should not be touched. In the same period permanent museum displays and interactives have continued to be damaged.

For five years I have worked on building relationships with local textile artists, mainly groups, but also with some individuals. Some of these collaborations have developed into

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strong relationships incorporating opportunities for associated workshops and demonstrations. Others have been one-off affairs. Groups and individuals can find the prospect of staging a display exciting but challenging, particularly when they realise they have to create labels and text panels. I have developed a very simple formatted approach which can be sufficiently varied within its presentation to appear fresh for each new display. The textile artists are able to cope with its requirements and its impact on my work time is minimal. Most of my input involves thinking of display possibilities and seizing the opportunities as they arise. The displays can be linked to another exhibition, or to a permanent gallery display.

Once the theme and dates for a display have been arranged the group is given a clear timetable leading up to the day of installation. They are supplied with examples of previous display text panels, labelling and examples of what has appeared in our What’s On guide. I take time to explain the need to make the text accessible, with regard to both readability and audience understanding of their display. We also discuss carefully the type of image to use. The time spent in the early stages minimises the work, and anxiety levels, for the artists later on in the process.

Apart from the initial meeting only one more meeting is required before the installation day. We look again at the display space and discuss the physical method of display. Of course there are telephone conversations and e-mails in between the meetings but their number and complexity vary enormously according to the group or individual’s needs

At the moment we are able to offer three display areas:

 Wardown Park Museum. Within the Threads of Life Gallery a contemporary display space within a case. We stage three exhibitions a year each for a four month long period.  Stockwood Discovery Centre. Outdoor spaces at within the formal gardens and on walls. These run for six months and are more difficult to arrange as I have to work with the gardeners and installation has to coincide with planting.  Open display in galleries on both sites. This type of display needs creative thought, and careful consideration of Health and Safety requirements but I actually find this the easiest option. The displays just need to fit in with the permanent galleries and not cause disruption. These displays tend to be shorter, one or two months.

Our current partners

New Horizons Textile Group Lace/textile groups

Individual makers Braidmakers Society

Basketmakers Barnfield College students

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Foreign groups and artists

As they have come to trust us and what we can do for them word about working with us has spread and I now find it much easier to find groups and individuals.

Benefits

We are seeing increased visitor numbers and visitors from further afield who are coming specifically to see the displays. There is a side effect of increased retail sales and use of our cafe.

Improvements and future development

I would like to develop a better form of evaluation with targeted questions so we can better understand the needs and wishes of these visitors.

I need to improve my record keeping by taking more and better quality photographs.

As our Cultural Trust develops we will be taking displays into other spaces such as those within community libraries.

Taking the first steps

Find out what groups or talented textile artists you have in your area.

Have a clear and simple plan.

Build relationships with them.

Accept that not all relationships will work, or will be long term, but those that are will reward you, and your visitors with intriguing, creative partnerships and displays.

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A ‘Fragment’ of Collaborations, Sarah Jane Kenyon, Exhibitions & Arts Officer, Trowbridge Museum.

Can a Museum work collaboratively with an Artist? How does a Museum allow an Artist access to a collection? What are the Benefits?

To sustain the future of Museum’s and capture diverse audiences, it is vital to think about projects that stretch beyond the realms of a Museum Institute.

Artist’s offer Museum’s an opportunity to see the collection as a resourceful inspiration. It also provides the Museum with an opportunity to allow access to its Archive Collection, its hidden gems!

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Furthermore, a temporary exhibition allows an audience to share the experience of an Artist and their journey working with a Museum.

Trowbridge Museum

Trowbridge Museum left: inside Home Mill, right: spinning mule, 1913

Currently housed in Salter’s Home Mill and is a Grade II listed building, which was constructed c1850. The Museum is also incorporated into The Shires Shopping Centre which along with the Museum opened in 1990.

The Museum is the only Museum with comprehensive displays telling the unique story of Trowbridge and its nationally significant textile history, relating to the production of West of England woollen cloth, an industry once dominant, but now vanished.

In its heyday, Trowbridge’s success in textile production was such that it became known at the ‘Manchester of the West’.

Cloth Road Artists

Cloth Road is a group of Artists, formed in 2004, with the purpose of prompting visual arts and artists in Bradford on Avon, Trowbridge, Melksham and the surrounding villages of West Wiltshire.

As part of this promotion of visual arts they organise a series of open studios and galleries for a nine day period every other year. This provides the public with an opportunity to meet artists, see their work, and discover the wide range of visual arts produced in this area and take part in workshops.

Project Aims

 To work with and offer a creative space for Cloth Road Artists.  To develop successful links with Cloth Road Artists and sustain relationships where the Museum is working in partnership with outside organisations.  To showcase a new body of work by Cloth Road Artists, during Cloth Road Arts Week.  To raise awareness of the work of contemporary artists.  To highlight the Museum’s Archive Collection.

Exhibition involvement

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Partnerships were developed with outside organisations:

Cloth Road Artists Trowbridge Arts Festival Heritage Open Days BA14 Culture

Access to the Archive Collection

Sarah Jane Kenyon left: Trowbridge Museum Archive Store, right: drawing by Maria Harryman

 A study visit to view items from the Archive Collection was supported by the Exhibitions & Arts Officer.  Observation of the Archive Collection and Museum Collection on display through drawing and photography.

Maria Harryman

When I spent the day at the museum I felt drawn to the broken ceramics. I loved the shapes of fragments and the snippets of pattern and colour on each piece.

Sarah Jane Kenyon, Cloth Road Artist Maria Maria Harryman, 2011 Harryman

The exhibition had a theme based on 3 prominent ideas

 Fragments – ceramics with snippets of pattern and colour, the stories they could tell if they could speak.  Boxes & collecting – holding onto things, particularly from years gone by.  Fragments of cloth – patchwork and quilting, an English craft made from discarded and recycled cloth.

Artist At Work

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Sarah Jane Kenyon left & right: fragments from Trowbridge Museum Archive Collection

 Responding to these little ‘Fragments and a patch work quilt Maria created a new body of textile work.

‘Fragments’ - Saturday 5th May – Saturday 29th September 2012

Sarah Jane Kenyon left: fragments from Trowbridge Museum Archive Collection, right: quilt made by Maria Harryman

What are Fragments?

Could they be the partial of something once was whole?

A glimpse into the life of what something once was?

2012 was the 2nd year of a partnership with Cloth Road Artists and Trowbridge Museum working collaboratively.

The exhibition ‘Fragments’ was a debut solo exhibition for Maria Harryman, Trowbridge- based Cloth Road Artist. It opened to coincide with Cloth Road Arts Week 5th-13th May 2012.

Maria spent a day behind the scenes at the Museum researching the Archive Collection. She came across boxes of broken ceramics found predominantly in the grounds of the old Rose & Crown in Steeple Ashton (now a private residence). Responding to theses little ‘Fragments’ and a patchwork quilt, Maria took inspiration from colours & architecture of Steeple Ashton and Trowbridge to create a new body of textile work.

The exhibition included a fantastic programme of FREE craft activities for both children and adults. It also featured in Trowbridge Arts Festival from 14th-29th September 2012.

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Exhibition Programme

 One solo textile exhibition by Artist Maria Harryman, which also featured in Heritage Open days from 6-9 September 2012.  A week of ‘Come along and chat to the Artist’.  Three adult craft activities themed around textiles.  Three children’s craft activities themed around the exhibition fragments.  Two craft activities took place during Trowbridge’s first Trowbridge Arts Festival.

Budget

 The project was generously sponsored by Trowbridge Town Council and Trowbridge Arts Festival.

Fragments

Sarah Jane Kenyon left: quilt made by Maria Harryman right: fragments from Trowbridge Museum Archive Collection

Boxes & Collecting

Sarah Jane Kenyon left: tin from Trowbridge Museum Archive Collection, right: box made by Maria Harryman

Quilts

Sarah Jane Kenyon left: quilt from Trowbridge Museum Archive Collection, right: quilt made by Maria Harryman

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Craft Activities

Tiny Tiles, for ages 4+ Funky Felt Making, for ages 4+ Block Printing, for ages 4+ Sarah Jane Kenyon / Trowbridge Museum

Press Coverage

 Collections Link.  Culture 24.  Contemporary Quilt Magazine.  Textile Society.  The Quilter.  Visit Wiltshire.  Wiltshire Times.  BBC Radio Wiltshire – Live.  Evolver.

 Embroiderers’ Guild.

Museum Benefits  Offered a venue for a Cloth Road Artist during Cloth Road Arts week.  Showing a solo temporary exhibition ‘Fragments’, a new body of contemporary work.  Raised awareness of Maria Harryman Cloth Road Textile Artist.  Delivered a series of FREE craft activities for adults and children.  Publicity for the museum by promoting contemporary artists and heritage.  AMA work based project for Exhibitions & Arts Officer.  Access to the Museum's Archive Collection.  Public access to the Museum’s Archive collection by incorporating it seamlessly into the exhibition.  Taking part in Heritage Open Days 2012.  Taking part in Trowbridge Arts Festival 2012.  Developed successful links with Cloth Road Artist, Heritage Open Days and Trowbridge Arts Festival, creating a legacy for future partnerships at Trowbridge Museum.

Benefits For The Artist

 Friendly enthusiastic / flexible museum staff.

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 Building up a relationship with the Exhibitions & Arts Officer – regular meetings and supportive.  Built confidence as an artist.  5 month solo exhibition.  Developed marketing skills.  Learnt about the processes required to deliver an exhibition.  Financial support for professional marketing / opening of the exhibition.  Financial support for hanging / mounting.  Artist / Museum agreement useful for clarity of who does what.  Good experience to go on CV.  Follow on opportunities – nomination for ‘In The Spot Light’ Quilters Guild, selling cards in the Museum shop and delivering workshops through the Museum.

Maria Harryman’s experience working with Trowbridge Museum:

Relationship built between Sarah and I was supportive. Regular meetings and communication helped keep things on track, allowed us to bounce ideas around. Sarah went over and above expectations to help make it happen.

Maria commented that the experience of working collaboratively with Trowbridge Museum “has given me confidence / knowledge to work with organisations in the future.”

Maria Harryman, November 2012

Top Tips

 Museum / Artist Agreement.  Time plan.  Regular meetings with agenda's and minutes.  Listening to the Artist.  Remember the project is a partnership.  Support the artist to develop their confidence.  If you have a creative side use this to your advantage.  Up keeping the Museum's Code of Ethics.

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A Delicate Balance – Working with a designer, Alex Ward, Dress and Textile Curator, National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts and History

In 2007 the National Museum of Ireland mounted an exhibition on the work of the Irish designer Neillí Mulcahy. Neillí had run a successful couture salon in Dublin between 1951 and 1969 and made her name with her use of Irish tweeds, almost to the exclusion of other fabrics. She catered to a home market of affluent Irish women, but also sold well to wealthy American tourists, establishing a loyal clientele base in the US. Neillí Mulcahy retired from

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business in the early 1970s, but an inveterate hoarder, she kept much of the material relating to her salon in her attic at home. This paper outlines the project and looks at the delicate balance between the expectations of the retired designer and some of the practical realities on the ground in the museum.

Neillí Mulcahy was born in 1925 in Dublin into a politically important family. Her father, General Richard Mulcahy, was involved in the Easter Rising of 1916 and the Irish War of Independence, was one time commander- in-chief of the Irish Army and went on to become a prominent politician in the independent Irish Free State government. To give some idea of the esteem the Mulcahy family are held in, one of Neillí’s nephews recently featured in Irish television’s version of The Secret Millionaire, and was described as being “from one of the most illustrious families in Ireland”.

Neillí trained at the Grafton Academy of Dress Design in Dublin, staying on after graduation to teach pattern cutting and grading for a couple of years. She then spent six months in the Paris atelier of Jacques Heim working as a “petit main”, before establishing her own business in Dublin in 1951. Early in Neillí’s career the acclaimed designer Elsa Schiaparelli singled her out for an award when she was a visiting judge at the annual Fashion Parade staged by the National Agricultural and Industrial Development Association, a valuable showcase in Ireland for young designers.

Irish designers in the fifties and sixties adapted contemporary fashions to traditional Irish fabrics, and their interpretations proved successful in foreign markets, particularly the US and Germany. Like her better known Irish contemporaries, Sybil Connolly and Irene Gilbert, Neillí Mulcahy used Irish tweeds, poplins and laces in her creations, but of the three she came to be the designer most associated with the use of tweeds. She combined haute couture techniques with traditional hand woven fabrics to produce practical modern clothes. Following her first fashion show in Dublin in 1955, the influential American magazine Women’s Wear Daily pronounced, “Neilli Mulcahy of Dublin is a name for buyer’s notebooks”, “She has a way with tweeds that is worth watching”. In 1963 all but two of the thirty two garments shown in her spring fashion show were of Irish tweed, and twenty seven of them were of Donegal hand woven tweeds.

Prior to the acquisition of Neillí archive and designs by the museum, her work and career had been the thesis topic for a Master’s degree undertaken by a mature student at Dublin’s National College of Art and Design. It was this student, with a background in fashion herself, who unearthed the forgotten treasure trove of material in Neillí’s attic, a collection consisting of garments, fabrics, accessories, drawings, photographs, news cuttings, sample cards, and correspondence with suppliers and clients.

In 2005 Neillí was persuaded to approach the museum about the possibility of donating this material. The collection was offered on the understanding that an exhibition of Neillí’s work would be mounted in return. The contents of Neillí’s attic were subsequently transported

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to the museum and work began on sorting it. It was exciting to see the wide range of material that was available, and it was immediately apparent that we would be able to create an exhibition that didn’t just focus on the clothes but could look at other aspects of Neillí’s work.

The collaboration was not just between the museum and the designer, but also involved the former student who had researched and written Neillí’s story, and this aspect of the proposed exhibition did take some working out. In the end she was employed by the museum for a fixed period of time and helped sort and list the collection, as well as being involved in the early stages of planning the exhibition. Her thesis research provided a wealth of information and together we worked on themes for the text panels and supplementary information throughout the exhibition, and for which she was credited.

When surveying the surviving garments for possible display, the main criteria was the condition and also the relevance of each one to Neilli’s annual fashions shows. Some of the garments that came to the museum initially were clothes that had been made for family members and were not relevant to her fashion collections. Most of these were subsequently returned. However Neillí was very involved in the selection process and was able to explain why certain items were important to include. Because so many of her designs were made with Irish tweeds, it was necessary to bring some variety into the selection, as it could quite easily have become an exhibition of little tweed suits. The availability of display cases dictated the amount of material we could show, and we eventually included twenty three mannequins with garments ranging from the early 1950s to 1969, mostly suits, coats and evening wear.

The gallery space available was an uneasy mishmash of freestanding cases of different sizes and a false wall with built in cases, only one of which was big enough for mannequins. It proved awkward to unify the cases, a problem overcome with partitions that were built as backdrops for mounting information panels and large scale photographs and which helped disguise the variety of case types. Smaller wall cases were utilised to display some of the hats, bags and gloves that Neillí used to dress models for fashion shows and photo shoots, as well as fabric sample cards, labels, buttons, and some of the dressmaking tools from the salon.

©National Museum of Ireland

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Because there was such a wealth of material in Neillí’s archive it was possible to address a wide range of themes in the exhibition, such as her promotional trips to America, her collaborations with individual tweed weavers, and her dealings with other suppliers. Sourcing buttons for her garments for instance, Neillí would send small fabric samples to Paris House in London who would dye buttons to match, and we were able to display some of this correspondence alongside the buttons.

Other topics relating to her business were illustrated on text panels and through a series of large booklets in the exhibition, topics such as the staging of the annual fashion show; and the uniforms she was commissioned to design during the course of her career.(1) We also included a panel about the models that were employed for photo shoots and fashion shows, most of whom would have been well known faces in Ireland at the time, and included information about what they could expect to earn for a day’s modelling. These themes, uniforms, fabrics, models, her life as a working mum, etc. created a far more rounded view of Neillí’s work than the clothes alone could have done. On their own the clothes would have been a far less interesting exhibition, because although her clothes were beautifully made, they were not particularly cutting edge.

As the curator of the exhibition I established a good working relationship with Neillí and during her visits to the museum in the planning stages of the exhibition, I came to realise that for her, it was as much about reminiscing about the past as it was about the nuts and bolts of the displays. She was in her eighties at the time and this tendency to reminisce frequently meant that meetings, although very informative, were long.

Neillí’s nascent business certainly benefitted from her family connections, with some of her first clients coming from within her parents’ social circle, and while this was referred to in the exhibition, we had to be careful not to over emphasize it. One of those clients was her maternal aunt Phyllis, whose husband Sean T. O’Kelly was Irish President during the 1950s. In 1959 she created the wardrobe worn by Phyllis during the first ever visit by an Irish Head of State to the United States of America.

The only item to have survived was an evening dress of antique Irish crochet and olive green silk created for a reception in the White House on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day. Years later, the dress was adapted to be worn as a wedding dress by one of Neillí’s daughters, with the green silk replaced by ivory silk. Neillí was very keen the dress would be included in the exhibition as she had designed it in 1959 and she took it upon herself to put it back together, with the help a couple of her former seamstresses. This reconstruction of the dress was carried out prior to it coming into the museum, and it was given to us shortly before the exhibition opened ©National Museum of Ireland along with a newly created net underskirt.

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Neillí’s idea of museum conservation was the usual one of the layperson, confusing it with restoration. She did suggest bringing the odd thing home again and remaking it, objects already accessioned, and her sense of ownership did linger, an issue which had to be handled sensitively. Some of the evening clothes showed a lot of wear and tear as they had been worn by Neillí’s seven daughters to various parties and dances. Conservation treatment was carried out on a number of garments and low lighting also helped. She did visit the conservation department to see how things were progressing but rarely interfered. While I’m sure she would have liked more garments to have been displayed Neillí understood the limitations of the space and cases available. All texts for the information panels were sent to Neillí to make sure they were factually correct and she did make some minor changes. All in all there was very little friction.

While Neillí’s business was never huge, she prided herself on providing a personal bespoke service to her clients, and resisted the move to scale up to factory production, which she was encouraged to do by The Irish Export Board during the 1960s. Profit was never Neillí Mulcahy’s main motivation, for her it was creating practical clothes in the beautiful Irish fabrics she loved, providing employment, albeit on a small scale, and selling a particular vision of Ireland. Neillí had a strong sense of nation building, unsurprising given her nationalist background, and she believed in promoting Ireland abroad at a time when the country was building its economic and tourist infrastructure.

While the museum has benefitted from the donation of Neillí’s archive and collection, and the wealth of information it contains, there were problems created by receiving a large bulk of unsorted material, and in hindsight there should have been a winnowing of the collection prior to it coming in. We did manage to return unwanted items, particularly pieces that were either in very poor condition or were not relevant to the fashion collections, but it did take quite some time to sort out. Of the material that we did want to acquire, Neillí had to consult with her seven daughters to make sure there was nothing that they wanted to keep. There are still some parts of the collection that are listed but not fully documented.

When the exhibition opened in October 2007 it received good coverage in the Irish media and Neillí was interviewed for the 6 o’clock television news the evening of the opening. One result of doing a retrospective like this in a small country like Ireland is that within weeks of the exhibition opening, there were approaches from other designers expressing a desire that the museum do something similar for them. I have been working with another retired designer over the last few years, a major figure in the field of Irish fashion for nearly four decades, but the project has stalled temporarily for funding reasons. It has not been an easy project largely because it is now very difficult for the museum to meet expectations and honour assurances that were made prior to Ireland’s current financial crisis.

(1) Neillí’s most important commission was in 1962 when she designed an air hostess uniform for the Irish state airline, Aer Lingus. Of specially woven Donegal tweed, the uniforms were made to measure for each woman.

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Threads of Power: Eighteenth Century Elegance Inspires Twenty-first Century Fashion, Martha Andrews, Curatorial Officer, Paxton House

The Paxton Trust was awarded a grant from The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation in 2011, which was to be used to conserve and display the Georgian gentleman's costume, held at Paxton House and also to engage visitors, in particular local young people. The collection consists of pieces which belonged to Patrick Home, a Scottish youth in his early twenties, at the court of Frederick the Great of Prussia and are thought to date mostly from about 1747 to 1751. The majority of the garments are court wear, almost all coats and waistcoats, of wool or silk but there is also a full length silk banyan, with matching waistcoat and the fancy dress costume he wore when he took part, mounted on horseback, in the Berlin Carousel of 1750. Some of the pieces had been conserved a decade or so ago and had been on display at various times since then.

Some of the funding went to Heriot Watt University's department of textile and design, based a few miles away in Galashiels, so the students could visit and create their third year collection in response to the costume and the Georgian and Regency interiors of Paxton House. Work from the students was selected by their tutors and the Trust's costume co- ordinator to feature in two exhibitions en-titled Re-Dress, alongside the Georgian pieces, during the summer of 2012. It was possible to show the development of their ideas from their initial reaction to the house, through to the finished garments by displaying their sketch books and toiles. As part of the collaboration a catalogue/booklet of the student work was published and a short fashion film was shot and formed part of the exhibition.

A variety of events held around the exhibition was aimed at engaging with the local audience of all ages. There was a Paxton Young Designer competition all children in the region, with the first prize winner's garment to be made up by the technicians at the university. A young model became 'The Face of Paxton', classes in Georgian etiquette and fashion were run, there were performances and the season ended with a costume ball which took place in the Regency Gallery.

The legacy for the Paxton Trust was that Patrick's garments were conserved, not only to improve their condition and preserve them for the future but also to enable more to go on display to the public on a rotational basis, not only in the glass case but around the house. This was aided by the purchase of several up to date mannequins. There has been a major up-grade of the storage facility with new made to measure boxes and all the collection (not just the Georgian pieces) re-packed, and re-organised. There will be a print on demand publication, containing images and patterns from some of the garments, available in Autumn 2013.

A selection of historically accurate male and female costumes were made, as a teaching collection for the education department, so schools can understand the construction of Georgian elegance from the corset out.

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The publicity associated with the project, television, press, social media and a short film of the conservation work on you-tube, has raised the profile of the collection and increased the number of inquiries from a variety of sources from students of historic fashion to theatre designers.

The Trust now holds a collection of twenty-first century haute couture designs made by the students as part of the agreement, for which storage space needed to be found and is perhaps the most obvious reminder of one lesson learned from the project. Even when an agreement is drawn up do not assume that everyone involved has read it fully or understands it to mean the same thing.

The project brought new audiences for Paxton House and its costume collection from a wide age range and geographical area. It has created a legacy of education materials, improved conservation, storage and display for an important selection of garments, which is now available for study

Acknowledgements:

Grateful thanks go to the The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation for funding the project and to Maggie Dobbie for her conservation work. The lecturers and students of Heriot Watt University for the collaborative work which formed the basis for the exhibition, the staff and volunteers of Paxton House and many others who put together the associated activities throughout the season.

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Savage Style: Clothes from Lily’s Wardrobe - A collaboration with Paul O’Grady, Homotopia, the Walker Art Gallery and Museum of Liverpool, November 2011 – February 2012, Pauline Rushton, Curator of Costume and Textiles, National Museums Liverpool

Who is Lily Savage ? Lily Savage is a character developed for a comedy act by performer and comedian Paul O’Grady. Lily is not a drag act – drag queens mime to music and imitate female characters, while Lily speaks to and interacts with the audience. She takes her name from an amalgamation of Paul’s own name as a gay man, and his mother’s maiden name, Savage, and she is based on a number of strong Northern women, including his mother’s two sisters.

Paul O’Grady first developed Lily in 1978 as a stage act at the Black Cap club in London, where she did mime to Barbra Streisand’s song, Nobody makes a pass at me, from the musical Pins & Needles. This was because Paul was too scared to actually speak as the character at first. But as the character of Lily developed over time, her ‘backstory’ emerged – Paul describes her as a single mother with a taste for shoplifting and occasional street walking. She was initially a rough ‘tart with a heart’, an acid-tongued, hard-as-nails outsider who appealed to a gay audience as they identified with her ‘otherness’.

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By the early 1980s, Lily had played many gay venues, had toured Europe and been nominated for the prestigious Perrier comedy award at the Edinburgh Festival, building up a large fan base on the way. In 1995, Lily’s breakthrough into TV came when she became a presenter on the Big Breakfast show, followed by guest spots on Ant & Dec, Top of the Pops and the Liverpool-based soap Brookside. She also appeared on the London stage in Prisoner Cell Block H : The Musical. 1997 saw the launch of her first show on BBC1, The Lily Savage Show, which took her wardrobe in a new direction – it became more glamorous and less ‘street’. Between 1998 and 2002, Lily became more family-friendly as the hostess of game show Blankety Blank, and her costumes became ever more extravagant and inventive.

Between 1999 and 2004, Lily’s career moved in another direction when she regularly appeared in panto, always in the same role, as the Wicked Queen, at various theatres in London, Birmingham and Bristol. In 2004 however, tiring somewhat of the character, Paul O’Grady decided to retire Lily to a French convent, where she remained for the next 6 years. In 2010 Paul surprised his fans by announcing that Lily had escaped from the convent, and that Christmas he brought her back as Widow Twankey in Aladdin at the Mayflower Theatre, Southampton.

Why stage an exhibition of Lily’s clothes ? In early 2010, a colleague in our Marketing Department saw Paul O’Grady on TV talking about his collection of Lily Savage costumes. They suggested to me that an exhibition of the costumes would appeal to multiple audiences – LGBT, family groups, young and older visitors – because of the many different contexts in which Lily had appeared. Indeed, not many characters have such strong cross- over appeal.

Also, Lily’s Liverpool connection was very strong – Paul was born in Birkenhead in 1955 and had already penned two very popular volumes of his autobiography by this point, recalling his early years in the city and in London. We also realised that a display of the costumes would fit into Liverpool’s annual Homotopia Festival, which runs throughout November every year, and with which National Museums Liverpool has worked closely in partnership for several years now.

Beginning the collaboration with POG and Homotopia In early 2010 NML approached Paul O’Grady via his agent Joan Marshrons, but he was not interested initially, mainly because he hadn’t been appearing as Lily for 6 years and, at that point, he wasn’t planning on re- introducing the character. Later that year however, while preparing to revive Lily as Widow Twankey, Paul reconsidered and his agent contacted NML about a possible exhibition. Negotiations then got under way.

We had a very positive relationship with Joan Marshrons from the start, she was very helpful and facilitated all requests – it was clear that both she and Paul were going to adopt

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a good, collaborative approach with us. We also began discussions with Gary Everett, Homotopia’s Creative Director, about how the exhibition could be integrated into his programme, and vice versa, and how we might cross-market the exhibition both on-line and in the print media of both organisations.

Organising the exhibition Lily’s wardrobe consisted of several hundred costumes, wigs, shoes and accessories kept in a South London storage facility. They’ve since been re-stored nearer to Paul O’Grady’s home in Kent. Most of the costumes are themselves the result of a creative collaboration between Paul and his friend, the designer and maker Martin Taylor, whom he had originally met on the drag circuit in the 1980s. Together they developed a whole range of outfits which explored and played around with a number of female stereotypes. Martin refers to them as ‘industrial couture’ because they were designed to withstand the rigors of repeated stage wear, just like panto costumes.

In October 2010 I made an initial assessment of the collection together with his agent Joan Marshrons and NML’s Director of Exhibitions – we asked ourselves if we could we make an exhibition from the collection ? What condition were the costumes in ? What storylines could we develop ? How would we display them and in which of our venues ? Overall we decided it had great potential as a show. Joan Marshrons then had all the costumes photographed by her assistant and supplied to me on disc so that I could begin developing themes, the content of the show, the display methods and type of mannequins required, etc.

In March 2011, at the end of a financial year, money became available to buy the mannequins we needed, – this amounted to a total of £10K. Paul O’Grady’s agent supplied us with Lily’s statistics (42” bust, 32½” waist, 38” hips, and 6’ 1” tall) so that we could order them from the maker even before we had the costumes. I decided from the beginning to use headed mannequins, with wigs, make-up and full features, all based on Lily – they seemed appropriate to off-set her elaborate costumes and outrageous character. For historic dress we generally use headless mannequins so as not to distract from the garments. We couldn’t use standard mannequins for this display as, due to the size of the dresses, many of them with low necklines, they would require too much padding which would be visible. I commissioned bespoke mannequins, based on commercial torsos, from Mannequin World, Stockport, our regular supplier. At the production stage extra filler was used to bulk out the torsos to the required size, which meant they were extremely heavy and took three people to lift each one. Including alterations, and with wigs (made double size for extra height) at £200 each and make-up at £100 each, the total cost of each mannequin was £950.

We ordered seven mannequins at a total cost of £6,650, leaving sufficient in the budget of £10K to pay for materials for underpinnings and labour costs for a freelance conservator, Anne-Marie Hughes, to mount the garments. We also used four headless mannequins that we already had in stock, in order to increase the number of outfits we could show.

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I decided to locate the seven headed mannequins in the Walker Art Gallery in an area on the first floor known as the Flat – a large, open space between galleries where we could easily install plinths and graphics. The four headless mannequins were to be displayed in our waterfront venue, the Museum of Liverpool, which only fully opened in July 2011, and which has been enjoying record visitor figures ever since. The idea was that, with cross- marketing, we could entice some of the Museum of Liverpool’s visitors up to the Walker to see the bigger version of the display.

Exhibition themes I wanted to represent all the main areas of Paul O’Grady’s career as Lily, both on stage and on TV, while exploring the development of the character over time. With that in mind, in September 2011 I visited the London store again and spent a day with Paul selecting some 20 outfits, which were then transported back to Liverpool. From these, I was able to make the final selection of11, ensuring that they fitted the completed mannequins. The selection was very much a collaborative process, with Paul expressing his preferences for which outfits he would like to see displayed, linked to how much he had enjoyed wearing them (or not). It was also a useful day for me to gather anecdotal information from Paul, some of which ended up in the exhibition interpretation. Anne Marie Hughes then spent about 10 days mounting the costumes, using very firm body stockings, nylon wadding and net to achieve the required shapes and curves.

We also referred to as many original images of Lily as we could in order to copy closely her style, i.e. the correct tights, shoes, accessories and jewellery to match each outfit. Costume jewellery alone (from local department stores and some via local Chinese importers) cost £200 and shoes were a further £100, some of them being more difficult than others to obtain now (e.g. white stilettos, sourced from vintage shops and on-line).

The following outfits were some of those exhibited:

Sequined skirt suit, snow leopard design, 1995 – One of Lily’s earliest outfits, worn on stage and for one of her earliest TV appearances, a 1995 BBC poetry programme called Love Lines, a spoof chat show during which she interviewed William Shakespeare about his views on romance. In making the suit, Martin Taylor took inspiration from the typical power-suit of the 1980s and early 1990s and then adapted it to incorporate Lily’s taste for animal prints and ‘bling’ in the form of sequins. An image of Lily wearing the suit in her dressing room backstage was acquired for use in the marketing campaign but then abandoned because she is smoking in the photograph and it was felt that that did not sit well with NML’s health- conscious policies, (i.e. it couldn’t be used as a prominent image). This is often the type of problem we encounter when trying to represent aspects of popular culture, especially when they are an intrinsic part of a particular character, which may clash with museum policy. At the end of the exhibition, Paul O’Grady very generously donated this suit to the museum, at my request, as a means of representing the character of Lily in our collection forever.

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Sequined lycra mini dress, 1995, and quilted Evil jacket, 2001 – Another outfit from Lily’s early career. The dress, which was bought commercially from a cheap dress shop, was worn many times for early stage performances and to publicise Lily’s national tour in 1995, styled with thigh-length boots, quite a tarty image. Later, Lily sometimes teamed the dress with the quilted rayon satin Evil jacket made by Martin Taylor, including on the Lily Live! TV show in September 2001. The look was Martin’s take on the female dominatrix figure. I considered styling it with boots but then decided not to as it may have proved too difficult to actually get them on the mannequin.

Bingo-themed evening dress, 1999 - A dress worn by Lily when she starred in the first ever national TV advertising campaign to promote bingo. The campaign aimed to encourage more people to play bingo, at a time when it was facing major competition from the National Lottery. Paul O’Grady specifically selected the dress for display while we were discussing what we should include in the exhibition. However, while we were mounting it he had second thoughts, and his agent Joan Marshrons rang to say that he wanted us to leave it out as he didn’t think that he wanted to be associated with the game of bingo anymore – it was a bit down-market, he felt, at a time when he was establishing himself as a chat show host. I reminded her of Lily’s character and sent an image showing the finished outfit ready for display, and Paul liked it so much that he changed his mind again, allowing us to go ahead.

Leopard-print velvet devore evening dress, 2005 – Lily Savage wears all types of animal prints but is especially associated in the popular imagination with leopardskin, just like the British barmaid stereotype, Bet Lynch from the TV soap Coronation Street. It is a fabric type forever linked to the ‘tart with a heart’ model and for that reason I was keen to have it represented in the exhibition. Lily wore it for a Comic Aid benefit concert in aid at the Carling Apollo Theatre, London, in February 2005. The show was broadcast on BBC1 and BBC2.

Panto outfit, the Wicked Queen, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, 1998 Lily appeared five times in this role, at various theatres, between 1999 and 2004, but with different costumes, including this one, made by Martin Taylor, (see front cover images). Paul O’Grady actually had it made before his panto career took off, and it features, without the matching headdress, in his 1998 book Lily Savage, A sort of A-Z thing. Like many in the gay community, both Paul and Martin Taylor were influenced by the stereotype of the glamorous Hollywood diva of the 1930s and 40s, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Hedy Lamarr, even Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, and this dress captures the spirit of that ‘look’ for them.

Ball gown, satin and beaded machine lace, made for Blankety Blank, May 1999 – Paul O’Grady and Martin Taylor were also influenced by the extravagant couture designs of the 1950s, by labels such as Dior, Balmain and Dèsses, particularly their very full-skirted creations similar to this one. The dress was made for Lily to wear for an episode of the

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television game show Blankety Blank in May 1999. Lily hosted the show for four years, from 1998-2002, and Paul specifically asked for this dress to be included in the exhibition as it was one of his favourites.

‘Shark Bite dress’, nylon taffeta, PVA glue and glitter, 2001 – A dress worn by Lily when she hosted an episode of Blankety Blank in March 2001. The fabric imitates the neoprene used for making wetsuits for divers, and the red ‘shark bites’ to the body and edges of the sleeves and hem were made by applying PVA glue mixed with glitter and allowing it to harden. It was a very uncomfortable dress to wear, according to Paul, being very tight with sharp edges to the glue, which can inflict cuts if not carefully handled. As a result, Lily only wore it once but it’s a good example of the sometimes subversive humour that Paul O’Grady and Martin Taylor brought to their collaborative designs.

Outcomes with Homotopia Homotopia is Liverpool’s leading LGBT arts and community organisation, now in its ninth year. Every November they hold the Homotopia Festival, which comprises a wide range of exhibitions, events, performances, contemporary dance and film. Homotopia is partly funded by Arts Council England and enjoys sponsorship from Merseyside Police, Gaydar, and Liverpool Mutual Homes, among others. It works with local youth and community groups, local schools, Liverpool City Council and Merseyside Police to raise awareness of and counter hate crimes and bullying. National Museums Liverpool has been working in collaboration with Homotopia since it began, to develop projects and cross- market exhibitions and events through the social media, websites and print media of both organisations. In recent years, these marketing strands have been developed still further by the creation of the on-line channel, Homotopia TV.

The Lily Savage exhibition was a fully integrated part of the 2011 Homotopia programme. Although they were not involved in the development of the exhibition content itself, we included in the exhibition a graphic panel about them and what they do, and we were included in their Festival brochure and on their website and Facebook pages etc. I also gave gallery talks on the exhibition to community groups organised by Homotopia, so adding to their outreach programme. By partnering up with Homotopia for marketing, we were able to reach a huge LGBT audience via their own media partners. These include Gaydar (3 million readers), Gay Times Magazine (100,000), DIVA magazine (125,000 lesbian women), OUT North West magazine (150,000, NW England), and SEEN magazine (50,000 Merseyside). In 2013 we will be staging another collaborative exhibition with them at the Museum of Liverpool about the life of Liverpool-born Vogue model April Ashley, one the first people to undergo, in 1960, successful gender reassignment surgery.

Completed displays, final budget costs and visitor figures Seven headed mannequins were displayed on the first floor of the Walker Art Gallery in an area which leads to all the other main galleries. Virtually every visitor who came to the Walker during this period would have automatically seen this display. For the four months it was on display in this venue we had an average of 20,000 visitors per month. At the Museum of Liverpool the costumes

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were prominently displayed in the two window bays of the atrium, again where the vast majority of visitors cannot help but see them as they enter or leave the building. During the four month display we had an average of 63,000 visitors per month at this venue. Final budget costs amounted to £14,600, i.e., £10K for the mannequins, underpinnings and mounting, and a further £4,600 for graphics, exhibition build and transport.

Launch and publicity Paul O’Grady very kindly agreed to come along to the Walker to launch the exhibition when it opened in early November 2011. We held a private lunch buffet for him, plus family, friends and invited guests including Martin Taylor, the costume designer, followed by what can only be described as a full-scale media scrum for the following three hours, attended by over 20 different news media organisations, including the BBC, ITV and of course Homotopia TV. All of which was absolutely priceless publicity for the exhibition.

Image courtesy of National Museums Liverpool

In December 2011, NML’s own marketing campaign included organising local media photo opportunities such as the one in which the cast of the panto Cinderella, playing at the Liverpool Empire Theatre opposite the Walker, visited the gallery.

Conclusion We were very lucky to be able to collaborate so closely and positively on this project with a locally-born celebrity and with a local arts organisation such as Homotopia. I’ve collaborated with other Liverpool-born celebrities in the past and haven’t always had such a positive experience, but Paul O’Grady was totally professional and his manager was extremely helpful and accommodating too, so personalities were a big part of the process.

But for me, good communication was the key to successful collaboration on this project. Gary Everett, Homotopia’s Creative Director, was invited to all project development team meetings and was in close contact with our own Marketing and Communications Dept throughout. The NML exhibition officer and I were in constant contact with Paul O’Grady and his manager about every aspect of the exhibition as it developed, from costume selection, to text content and graphics design, to the details of the launch, checking for their approval at each stage. And finally, a fairly long lead-in time to the show gave all of us the time we needed to discuss the general approach we would take and any potential issues. We had the opportunity to build confidence on all sides, so that we could produce a

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quality end-product that would do justice to the character, the costumes and all the partners involved.

____ DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES! DATS conference 2013

Construction and Reconstruction: Interpreting the Past 10-12 October, at the Fashion Museum, Bath

We are delighted to confirm that Rosemary Harden has kindly agreed to host the DATS conference this year at the Fashion Museum in Bath. This will follow the pattern of previous years in holding to the idea of a ‘training’ conference, with an add-on day on Saturday 12th, and will hopefully include a number of areas which have appeared on the evaluation form wishlists recently. This will also be an excellent opportunity to visit ’50 Fabulous Frocks’ if you have not already seen it, as well as help The Fashion Museum celebrate its 50th birthday.

The working title is ‘Construction and Reconstruction: interpreting the past’ and will include analysing construction of dress, reconstruction of both dress and textiles, interpretation and display strategies and research projects. More details and suggestions will appear in the call for papers to be circulated on the DATS email listing.

Images © Fashion Museum

News

Costume gallery closures

National Museums Scotland has announced that the National Museum of Costume at Shambellie House, near New Abbey, Dumfries, will not reopen in the spring and is to close.

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The costume collection is part of the national textile and dress collections which is stored at the National Museums Collection Centre, Edinburgh. It is planned to display a selection from this collection within new Art and Design galleries which are scheduled to open in 2016 at the National Museum.

St. Fagans: National History Museum, Cardiff, Wales

The costume gallery has been closed as part of a major five year redevelopment program that has seen the closure of the indoor galleries at the museum.

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PASOLD CONFERENCE 7-8 NOVEMBER 2013

Goldsmiths, University of London

‘Sourcing the Archive: new approaches to materialising textile history’

Keynote Speakers: Professor Carolyn Steedman, University of Warwick

Dr Solveigh Goett, Textile Artist and Researcher.

For Call For Papers (deadline June 7 2013) and further details please see the conference website at: http://www.gold.ac.uk/history/research/pasoldconference/ or email: [email protected]

Goldsmiths’ acclaimed history of innovative work in the textile arts will be celebrated during the Conference with a special exhibition of material from the Goldsmiths’ Textile Collection, ‘an eclectic, international treasure trove of textiles’. There will also be an optional afternoon of object handling in the Collection to generate discussion around new ways of writing history.

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CHORD: the Centre for the History of Retailing and Distribution at the University of Wolverhampton is holding a workshop on:

Embellished Textiles: Interpretation and Care of Fine Needlework in Museums and Historic Houses, on Wednesday 12 June 2013

The workshop will be held in Room MC301, Millennium City Building (MC), located on the University of Wolverhampton’s City Campus, just 10 minutes’ walk from Wolverhampton’s bus and train stations. For further information see the workshop web-page at: http://home.wlv.ac.uk/~in6086/histextiles2013.htm

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Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions and Events

London

Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7, www.vam.ac.uk

David Bowie Is – until 11th August 2013

The V&A has been given unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive to curate the first international retrospective of the extraordinary career of David Bowie - one of the most pioneering and influential performers of modern times. David Bowie is will explore the creative processes of Bowie as a musical innovator and cultural icon, tracing his shifting style and sustained reinvention across five decades. The V&A’s Theatre and Performance curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh have selected more than 300 objects that will be brought together for the very first time. They include handwritten lyrics, original costumes, fashion, photography, film, music videos, set designs, Bowie’s own instruments and album artwork.

Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s - 9 July 2013 - 16 February 2014 Discover the creative explosion of London fashion in the 1980s in a major exhibition at the V&A. Through more than 85 outfits, Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s showcases the bold and exciting new looks by the most experimental young designers of the decade, including Betty Jackson, Katharine Hamnett, Wendy Dagworthy and John Galliano.

The exhibition traces the emerging theatricality in British fashion as the capital’s vibrant and eclectic club scene influenced a new generation of designers. Also celebrating iconic styles such as New Romantic and High Camp, and featuring outfits worn by Adam Ant and Leigh Bowery, the exhibition explores how the creative relationship between catwalk and club wear helped reinvent fashion, as reflected in magazines such as i-D and Blitz and venues including Heaven and Taboo.

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V&A Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road, London, E2 9PA

Modern British Childhood - Until 14 April 2013

Modern British Childhood explores how childhood has transformed in Britain during the period between the London Olympic Games of 1948 and 2012.

Charting 64 tumultuous years in history, this exhibition explores issues surrounding education, health, family, entertainment, fashion and play. From a pair of 1950s children’s NHS prescription glasses to the 2005 Teddyfone (designed for under 5s) the exhibition gathers together objects – exceptional or everyday, public or private – that dramatise the huge changes that have occurred in children’s lives. Clothing, toys, books and childcare items will be shown alongside TV and film footage and photography.

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Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3XF www.ftmlondon.org

Kaffe Fassett – A Life in Colour – until 29 June 2013

Kaffe Fassett – A Life in Colour is a celebration of the work of one of the great practitioners of contemporary craft. This exhibition, the first in London since Kaffe Fassett’s record- breaking show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1988, features over 100 works within a dramatic installation designed by Sue Timney.

Exhibition highlights include extravagantly-coloured 9-foot-wide knitted shawls, coats and throws, patchwork fabrics shown in a glorious selection of quilts, as well as items especially created for this exhibit and not seen in public before. The design also features a ‘feeling’ wall that allows visitors to touch and better understand the textiles on display and their construction. From his childhood in the creative community of Big Sur, California, to his career as a painter, and later as a knitwear and textile designer in London from the 1960s to the present day, Kaffe’s ability to blend pattern, texture and colour has won him a dedicated following of enthusiasts.

Zandra Rhodes Unseen - 12 July - 31 August 2013

With spectacular textiles, ravishing dresses and original sketches, Zandra Rhodes Unseen presents a rare opportunity to explore the archive, studio and creative process of one of the world’s most distinctive designers. An inspiration to her contemporaries for over 50 years, this new exhibition combines lesser-known fashion collections with more familiar designs drawn from a prolific career.

---- The British Museum, Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3DG, www.britishmuseum.org

Social Fabric; African Textiles Today – Textiles from southern and eastern Africa - until 21 April 2013

The rich fabric of African printed and factory-woven textiles reflects changing times, fashion and taste. From eastern and southern Africa, the social and historical significance of these beautiful and diverse materials are also reflected in the identities of those who wear them.This exhibition takes a fresh look at the history, manufacture and continuing social significance of these textiles.

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William Morris Gallery, Forest Road, London E17 4PP

The Art of Embroidery: Nicola Jarvis and May Morris, 6 July to 22 September 2013

Winner of the 2010 Inspired by Morris group show, Nicola Jarvis returns to the William Morris Gallery with a solo exhibition. A hand-embroidery specialist, Jarvis's new work

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includes works on paper and textiles created in dialogue with the techniques and ideas championed by William Morris's daughter May Morris. Jarvis's work will be exhibited alongside rarely seen archive materials offering refreshing new perspectives on May Morris's career.

Adult Workshop: Ornamental Embroidery, 24 July 2013, 10:30 - 17:00 £57.50 including materials, booking essential as places are limited. This workshop is subject to a minimum number of participants.

Stitch a botanical sampler in the style of May Morris with Ornamental Embroidery teachers Lynn Hulse and Nicola Jarvis. This course will include a visit to the exhibition The Art of Embroidery where examples of embroidery by Nicola Jarvis and May Morris (William Morris’s daughter) are on display. Beginners welcome.

Wales and West England

Northampton Museums and Art Gallery, Guildhall Road, Northampton, NN1 1DP, www.northampton.gov.uk

She Walks in Beauty: 60 Years of Dal Co' Shoes - 20 April – 23 June 2013

This exhibition celebrates the 60th anniversary of the company Dal Co. Founded in 1952 in Rome by Alberto Dal Co the company has been producing handmade shoes for decades, catering to film stars, celebrities and ordinary people with a passion for bespoke shoes. The company - now led by the grandniece of the founder, Silvia Petrucci Dal Co – is responsible for the famous Paparazzo shoe.

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St Fagans National History Museum, Cardiff, CF5 6XB http://www.museumwales.ac.uk

th South Wales Lace Makers, 29 June, 10am-5pm

Drop in to the Museum to see the bobbin lace makers demonstrate their craft.

South East of England

Chertsey Museum, 33 Windsor Street, Chertsey, Surrey KT16 8AT Tel. 01932 565764 www.chertseymuseum.org.uk

DAY AND NIGHT - until 24th August 2013

The new Olive Matthews Costume exhibition, Day and Night: From the Bedroom to the Ballroom, 1929 - 1939’ is now open. It features underwear, daywear and gorgeous evening wear. Many new and previously unseen pieces from this era of soft sinuous curves and rich, luxurious fabrics are on display. Admission to the above displays is FREE

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DAY AND NIGHT Study Day, May 11th 2013

An exploration of fashion from the 1930s with papers on a variety of themes. Booking required. Tickets £15.00 per head. -----

Haslemere Educational Museum, 78, High Street, Haslemere, Surrey, GU27 2LA, Tel. 01428 642112, www.haslemeremuseum.co.uk

Haslemere Educational Museum will be holding an exhibition entitled ‘From Russia With Love’ between 4th and 29th June. Come and discover amazing artefacts from the Museum’s collection relating to the history and culture of the largest country in the World. With a special focus on 19th century folk art. -----

Waddesdon Manor, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, HP18 0JH www.waddesdon.org.uk

SACRED STITCHES: ECCLESIASTICAL TEXTILES IN THE ROTHSCHILD COLLECTION –until 27 October 2013 Drawn entirely from the stored collections at Waddesdon, rare fragments of ecclesiastical textiles and vestments, dating from c 1400 to the late 1700s, have been assembled for the first time in a special exhibition which explores the intricate techniques employed to glorify God using silk and metal thread, and this little-known aspect of Rothschild collecting.

Originally parts of altar frontals, vestments and other church furnishings, the textiles survive at Waddesdon as hangings, cushions, banners and mounted on furniture, as their original purposes were altered to suit collecting tastes and interior styles of the late 1800s. Many items have not been displayed for twenty years, and have been specially conserved and mounted.

There are two other textile-related installations at Waddesdon from May to October 2013: Darning the Land: Sewn by artist Philippa Lawrence, a decorative planting in the grounds, inspired by the darns and workings of textiles in store; and Folded Beauty: Masterpieces in Linen by Joan Sallas, baroque-style napkin folding in the Breakfast Room and Dining Room. Please see the website for details.

Southwest of England

Fashion Museum, Assembly Rooms, Bennett Street, Bath, BA1 2QH, www.fashionmuseum.co.uk

50 FABULOUS FROCKS! - until the end of the year

The exhibition will include a gorgeous gold embroidered Georgian court dress and a delicate 1870s gauze bustle day dress edged with purple fringing and redolent of the paintings of Tissot alongside a slinky jersey evening dress by Ossie Clark and a classic chic Chanel

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suit. will feature the iconic and influential names of 20th century couture - Schiaparelli, Poiret, Vionnet, Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent – as well as today’s most desired fashion designers and brands - Erdem, Burberry, John Rocha. This display will show both the richness of the museum collection as well as key moments in fashion history that continue to provide inspiration for modern day designers along with TV and film makers - think Downton Abbey, The Great Gatsby and Anna Karenina.

Glamour - Continuing throughout 2013.

This dazzling display at the Fashion Museum invites visitors to be inspired by the glitz and glamour of evening wear fashion over the last 100 years. Featuring twenty two show stopping evening gowns and cocktail dresses, Glamour presents a glittering array of sumptuous silks and bejewelled creations guaranteed to make anyone the belle of the ball.

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Killerton House, Broadclyst, Exeter, Devon, EX5 3LE www.nationaltrust.org.uk/killerton

Objects of desire - now on

In the new fashion exhibition, Objects of desire, you can discover opulent dresses, shoes and accessories in a display designed and guest curated by renowned interior designer, Russell Sage. Explore the timeless desirability of designer fashion in an exhibition where interior design meets vintage fashion.

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Totnes Fashion and Textiles Museum, Bogan House, 43 High Street, Totnes, TQ9 5NP www.totnesfashionandtextilesmuseum.org.uk

ReFashion – Recycling then, now and future, 20 May 2013 to 04 October 2013

Recycled garments, textiles, ideas and designs. Museum open 21st May to end of September, Tuesday to Friday, 11.00 to 5.00. Guided tours by arrangement (these can be outside normal opening times or during October).

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TROWBRIDGE MUSEUM, The Shires, Court Street, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 8AT www.trowbridgemuseum.co.uk

Rich and Rare: A People’s History of West of England Cloth - from 9th February

Many people know about the superb quality woollen cloth produced in industrial towns such as Trowbridge. Not everybody knows what it cost to produce such cloth in human terms. The exhibition examines the difficult birth of the Industrial Revolution in the area.

Textile and Weaving Festival - August 17th to November 16th 2013

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This year is the 5th anniversary of the biannual Textile and Weaving Festival. To celebrate its success the Museum is embarking on a special project 5 Q’s: A Quintet of Quality, Quirky, and Quaint Quilts. As the festival has grown from strength to strength it has been decided to bring together a community of textile crafts people to make 5 different quilts. Each quilt will be made by a different group, using their own interpretation of what quilting means to them, with the aim of displaying them in 5 different venues.

North England

Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, Rusholme, Manchester, M14 5LL http://www.manchestergalleries.org

Christian Dior: designer in focus 12 June 2013 – 12 Jan 2014 An exhibition of key outfits from Dior’s brief but supremely influential career, 1947-57. The fifteen costumes of Paris and London couture include day, cocktail and evening wear, and represent many of Dior’s seminal collections, from the ‘New Look’ of 1947 onwards. No other costume collection in the north of England has any examples of Paris Dior, so our recently acquired outfits will be a unique opportunity to admire the work of this seminal couturier.

Left: A vibrant floral print cocktail dress of 1956 is included, which was created by a very young Yves Saint Laurent whilst a junior designer for Dior.

Right: Rare Paris label outfits include Wallis Simpson’s ‘New Look’ suit.

Images courtesy of Gallery of Costume.

Knitted Elegance: Creative Fashion since the 1950s - until 2 June 2013 A range of avant-garde outfits from the gallery’s collections to illustrate that knitwear can be sophisticated as well as practical, beautiful as well as warm, chic as well as homely. Designers such as Vivienne Westwood, Yves Saint Laurent, Sonia Rykiel, Missoni, Moschino, Alice Temperley and Maria Grachvogel will be represented, and because knitwear is frequently at the cutting edge of contemporary fashion, there will be four examples from last season’s collections.

Displayed around the staircase and dining room you can also see work made in response to Knitted Elegance by new community based artists working with artist Sarah Marsh.

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Leeds Costume Collection, Lotherton Hall, Aberford, Leeds, LS25 3EB www.leeds.gov.uk/lothertonhall

Dressed for Battle: The impact and influence of war on fashion - until 31 January 2014

An exhibition exploring how clothes and style have been affected by war - from the clothes worn by those on the home front during both world wars to the designer’s love of the military look.

Study day - ‘Fashions from the Home Front’ – planned for the 17th October 2013. Speakers confirmed include The History Wardrobe and Geraldine Howell the author of a new book on wartime fashions. ----

Sudley House, Mossley Hill Road, Aigburth, Liverpool, L18 8BX www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk

20th Century Chic: 100 years of women's fashion – from 16 February 2013

From the corsets and petticoats of the Belle Epoque to the designer labelled spandex of the 90's, 20th Century Chic charts 100 years of women’s fashion. The display of 12 evening outfits reflects the monumental changes in the role of women during the twentieth century. The changing styles, materials and colours of the garments echo wider social changes and represent key periods in women’s history. The impact of two world wars, women entering the workplace, feminism and new manufacturing methods are echoed in the changing hemlines, materials and styles of the garments on display.

Scotland

The Burrell Collection, Pollok Country Park, Glasgow, G43 1AT www.glasgowmuseums.com

Gilt and Silk: Early seventeenth-century costume - from 23 March 2013

This new display showcases early seventeenth-century costume in the Burrell Collection. The highlight is an extremely rare crimson silk satin petticoat embroidered with a variety of flowers and birds that will be displayed full-length for the first time. Dating from about 1610-1620, its provenance suggests that it may have belonged to Anne of Denmark, the wife of James VI and I. Other favourites returning to display after conservation work are an embroidered woman’s waistcoat together with coifs, nightcaps and sweet bags. New interpretation will include a specially commissioned film looking at how these garments were created and worn. To accompany the display there will be a programme of family and adult events.

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New and Recent Books

Knitting: Fashion, Industry, Craft, Sandy Black, (V&A Publishing, 2012)

Knitting draws on the V&As superlative collection of knitted fashions and artefacts, ranging from commonplace articles of everyday use to virtuoso examples of the knitters craft, including finely knit and embroidered silk stockings, intricate lacewear, Victorian beaded bags and knitted dresses from designers such as Jean Paul Gaultier and Julien Macdonald.

Hardy Amies, Michael Pick, (Antique Collectors’ Club, 2012)

Hardy Amies epitomised understated British couture, emphasising the cut of fine materials by tailored construction. Untrained in dress-making, he achieved headlines in Vogue in 1937 with his 'Panic' suit, a reconstructed design of a staple in every woman's wardrobe, wittily named to reflect current events. Evoking the glamour of pre-war London while meeting the demands of contemporary society's activities - town to country, morning to night - Amies designs drew a star- studded clientele. His war-time 'utility' designs revealed his design philosophy (and partly concealed his role as head of the Belgian Section of SOE), unveiling a needle-sharp intelligence and intuition for the changing world of fashion, his elegant execution of which was rewarded through the influential seal of approval by HM Queen Elizabeth II, as Princess Elizabeth, in 1950. The first post-war international designer to visit the USA, Amies' luxurious style produced lucrative global business opportunities, including ready-to-wear, menswear shown as couture, and wide-ranging merchandising options.

WILLIAM MORRIS TEXTILES, Linda Parry (Revised edition, V&A Publishing, 2013) This book is a comprehensive survey of the colourful textiles produced by Morris and his companies. It remains the authority in the field and this revised edition has been completely rewritten and expanded with beautiful new photography.

V&A PATTERN: C.F.A. VOYSEY, Karen Livingstone, (V&A Publishing, April 2013) This is the latest title in the V&A Pattern series which celebrates the innovative work of this designer.

Textiles and Dress of Gujarat, Eiluned Edwards, (V&A Publishing, 2011)

Textile and costume traditions of Gujarat in northwestern India are acclaimed for their design and craftsmanship. The beautiful weaves, dyeing techniques, intricate embroideries, artistic motifs and embellished dress, and the communities to which many of these are unique, have all been the subjects of extensive documentation. This book examines the 'social life' of Gujarat's textiles, tracing the historical journey of cloth and costume until modern-day dress. It looks closely at dyed and painted textiles, and embroidery, and locates their place in culture, trade and commerce, and their effect on entrepreneurship in the region. The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625, Jane Huggett, (Author), Jane Malcolm-Davies (Editor), Ninya Mikhaila (Editor), Perry Michael (Illustrator), (Fat Goose Press Ltd, March 1, 2013)

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Draping Period Costumes; Classical Greek to Victorian, by Sharon Sobel, (The Focal Press Costume Topics Series, 2013)

Historical Wig Styling: Ancient Egypt to the 1830s, By Allison Lowery (The Focal Press Costume Topics Series, 2013)

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