The Costume Society Awards

• The Museum Placement Award - Susan North (Co-ordinator)
• The Yarwood Award - Cally Blackman (Co-ordinator)
• The Patterns of Fashion Award - Liz Booty (Co-ordinator)
• The Student Bursary - Liz Booty (Co-ordinator)
• Student Design Award - Sylvia Ayton (Co-ordinator)

As a registered charity with a constitutional aim of providing education in dress studies the Society had, until late 2006, three existing sources of funding to support this aim - the Student Bursary and the Patterns of Fashion and Doreen Yarwood Awards. In 2007 we introduced the Museum Placement Award. This has been created to offer financial support to a host museum and a student, at undergraduate or postgraduate level, and will part or wholly fund a period of work experience in the dress and textile department of a UK museum.

The application form for this new award is printed in the 2007 edition of Costume. It can also be found on our website and will be featured in our Newsletters. The Society’s Executive Committee approved the terms of the award at its meeting on 27 January, 2007 and we thank Susan North, Vice-Chairman of the Society and Senior Curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum for devising the terms of the award so swiftly, with help from our trustees with curatorial expertise.

In addition to these three awards to students, The Society has reconsidered the terms of the Doreen Yarwood Award. The Executive Committee approved the proposal that, from 2007 onwards, this award should be directed towards research undertaken by students at post-graduate level on an appropriate course at a dedicated institution. It was agreed that the award be offered to one institution for a three year period – The London College of Fashion in the first period from 2007/10, after which the award will be open to application from another institution for a similar period. The Society’s Sub-Committee for the award, re-named The Yarwood Award, will be involved with the final selection of students from those nominated by their course leader.

We hope that all of these awards will build the future membership of our Society and ensure our continued relevance to the development of dress studies within the UK.