Museum Placement Award 2008 Reports:

The Costume Society is delighted to have been able to make two awards this year.
Hannah Oliver is volunteering at the Fashion Museum in Bath researching and updating documentation on the Museum’s long-term loans and improving the storage of the fashion photography archive.
Lindsey Holmes is volunteering at Ayscoughfee Hall Museum assessing its dress collection in terms of appropriate items for display and handling, and identifying garments as suitable candidates for reproduction for the Museum’s education programme.

Students Report-1:

Lindsey Holmes 19 January 2009  Ayscoughfee Hall Museum

Placement

I worked part time on the costume collection at Ayscoughfee Hall Museum between July and November 2008.

Work Completed

I started by making an overall assessment of the documentation and storage of the costume collection at Ayscoughfee before identifying items with potential for being transferred to the new educational handling collection. I also searched for any items with a connection to Ayscoughfee Hall and the First World War, which was the chosen period for a series of education performances to tie in with the 90th anniversary of the armistice in November. I discovered some excellent examples of locally worn dress from this period and some thought proving stories about people living in Spalding at this time.

From this I developed a script, sourced props and developed characters and costumes with help from other local museums and organisations. Local actors and the Museum’s management team took part the final performance. I also played a small part, giving me a first hand opportunity to observe visitors’ reactions.

After the performances I chaired a discussion with members of the public explaining how the project grew out of the stories discovered in the Museum’s costume collection. I also led a discussion with visitors to the performance who gave their feedback to the experience and collection feedback. The final part of the project is a small exhibition showing items identified in the collection alongside my research drawings and photographs and a reproduction of a piece of costume.

How the student benefited from the award

I have been trying to develop a specialism in costumes for performance in a museum setting and this project gave me the opportunity to develop this in a practical project with the full support of Ayscoughfee Hall Museum. The feedback has heavily influenced my direction in my future direction and I now want to be involved in all aspects of the projects I work on. It has given me the opportunity to develop new skills which will assist my future work in this area.

Future plans

I hope to develop theatrical costumed performance in museums and heritage settings through my final MA project, and to continue to develop work in this area. I hope to continue to experiment and develop new ideas and techniques.

This work would not have been possible without the support of the Costume Society and the tireless work of the Museum staff and our partner organisations..

Curators Report-1

Richard Davis Museum Manager, Ayscoughfee Hall Museum 19 January 2009

Placement Lindsey Holmes worked part time with our costume collection from July to November 2008 with the aim of developing links from the collection with our new education program. The Museum has no paid costume staff.

Work Completed Lindsey assessed the costume collection and identified potential items for display and handling, and suitable garments for reproduction for the Museum’s education programme. Items were identified as potential starting points for an education project to mark the 90th anniversary of the armistice in November 2008.
 
The final outcome was a theatrical performance entitled “Won’t You Come and help?”, set in Ayscoughfee Hall during 1915 with stories, characters and costumes developed from Lindsey’s research.

Following the final performance Lindsey gave a public lecture explaining the processes used, and traced connections from the performances back to the costume collection. Lindsey also collected feedback from the visitors who attended the performances

An exhibition has been created to show the visual side of the research and design process, tracing one item chosen from the collection, a women’s blouse from about 1915, through to the costume used in the performances.

How the Museum benefited from the award The “Won’t you come and help?” project turned out to be an ambitious but rewarding project that built awareness of our costume collection through the performances.
 
This award gave the Museum an opportunity to incorporate our costume collection into our education program. Working with external partners and the public has produced unexpected but existing results and lots of potential for future development.
It has also given us the opportunity to explore in greater depth the potential for connecting the public with our collections through theatrical performance.

Future plans This project has highlighted the benefits of costumed theatrical performance as a tool for giving visitors access to our collections. We hope to be able to use the work developed in this project again in future, possibly with different audiences, and hopefully develop more of our collections in the same manner.

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Students Report-2:

Hannah Oliver 2008  Fashion Museum bath

Throughout my degree,BA in Fashion Design Skills, I often used historic costume as inspiration for my collections. I found it fascinating the amount of work that went into the garments, and I wanted to try and work closer with the objects to really appreciate the skill that had gone into them.
I started volunteering at the Fashion Museum, previously known as the Museum of Costume, in Bath during my first year at university. Working behind the scenes I was able to really get involved in the processes undertaken when looking after objects. From that first placement I did three years ago, I have discovered a real interest in museum work, and I was thrilled to be given more opportunities to work at the Fashion Museum. By receiving the Costume Society Museum Placement Award I was able to develop skills within another aspect of museum work. I was set two projects to undertake.

My first task was to go through a collection of photographs for the Sunday Times, and try to resolve how best to store them. After sorting them into date and size order I then had to contact a company to see if it was possible to get the storage we required for them.

The second was to review all of the long term loan agreements made to the Fashion Museum since it had opened. As some of the loans dated back as far as the 1960’s, it sometimes proved quite a challenge to try and trace the Lender’s, as there was little documentation to go by. It was however, a rewarding task when I was able to make contact with them. Some Lender’s could remember exactly the loan they had given and were delighted for their objects to remain at the museum. I could therefore send off a new loan agreement for them to sign.

Other loans though, were not so straight forward. Due to the lack of documentation for some of the earlier loans, there were consequently minimal descriptions of the objects, and so trying to narrow down the possible objects to their one was quite a challenge. I spent a lot of time in the stores, trying to track down objects, searching through donor cards and taking photographs of possible matches until we were sure we had come across the object in question.

After new loan agreements had been made, often with the descendants of the original lenders, and sometimes decisions had to be reached about the fate of the objects; either because it was impossible to trace the Lenders, or the museum no longer needed the object on loan. In some cases the original Lender’s were happy to change their loans to donations, which meant that some of the significant collections could remain permanently at the Fashion Museum for visitors to enjoy.

As a result of reviewing the loan agreements it had meant that the Fashion Museum now have up to date records of what is on loan, and this will then help them in providing better opportunities to other Museums wishing to borrow objects for other exhibitions, and visitors who greatly enjoy the Museums displays.

Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to develop my skills within the Museum world. I am looking forward to career opportunities within this area in the near future. 

Curators Report-2

Rosemary Harden 17 September 2008 Report from the Fashion Museum, Bath

This summer Hannah Oliver, a recent graduate of the BA in Fashion Design Skills from Bath Spa University, has worked at the Fashion Museum (previously the Museum of Costume, Bath) courtesy of the Costume Society Museum Placement Award. The plan was that Hannah should work on two collection management projects during her time with us: one was to review the long term loans to the Fashion Museum, and the second to come up with a specification for a storage system for a large collection of fashion photographs. In practise, Hannah spent most of her time working on the loan project; although she has also undertaken valuable work in assisting with the final spec for the storage project.

The Fashion Museum has over 30 long term loans to the museum collection, most of which were originally made in the 1960s when the museum first came to Bath. Forty years later in 2008, the documentation of the loans, and indeed the loans themselves, needed to be reviewed. New agreements needed to be made, often with the descendants of original lenders, and decisions needed to be reached about the fate of the objects on loan.

Hannah spent her time meticulously working through the 30 loans, investigating current documentation, identifying and contacting lenders, discussing and agreeing lenders’ wishes, locating and photographing objects, and entering object details on the museum’s collection management system. Hannah approached all of these tasks with her characteristic thoroughness and achieved great results. All summer she demonstrated that she could work hard, approach complex documentation issues in a methodical manner and through it all retain a quiet sense of humour, all qualities much needed for a career working in museums!

The results of Hannah’s work means that to date the Fashion Museum has renewed the loan agreements for a number of important pieces in the collection. Last week for example, curators from The Royal Collection visited us here in Bath to sign a new loan agreement for a loan of two wonderful Hartnell evening gowns, originally from The Queen Mother, but now from Her Majesty The Queen.

A superb collection of fans, on loan to the museum since 1965 has now become a most generous gift; and the owners of a rare embroidered 17th century jacket have very kindly agreed to continue the loan of this important garment to the Fashion Museum. Bringing things more up to date, fashion designer Janice Wainwright has not only renewed her loan to the museum of over 70 pieces, but has ,through Hannah’s work, added extra ensembles to her most generous original loan.

Although documentation is key collection management work, the reality (as everyone who works in a museum knows) is that the long term loans to the Fashion Museum would not have been reviewed without Hannah’s work and the Costume Society’s support. The Museum Placement Award has therefore not only given Hannah the opportunity to develop core museum skills which will be of use to her in her future career, but has also greatly benefited the Fashion Museum and the many visitors who enjoy these superb collections.
Thank you, therefore, to you all!