Managing Costume Collections: an Essential Primer by Louise Coffey-Webb

Author:Louise Coffey-Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Texas Tech University Press
Published: 2020-04-02T19:36:16+00:00

Chapter 4: Exhibitions and Display

Accessibility and Accommodating the Public

As the collection manager or steward of your collection, you will need to weigh the pros and cons of showing your collection. This step should be done when you create your mission statement and collection policy.

Museum professionals have long felt that exhibitions are the result of compromises between conservators and curators. Funding for cultural projects connected with clothing is at a worrisome low

early in the twenty-first century. For that reason alone, you should be thinking of building awareness and outreach to the public. Admittedly, these actions may put the objects in danger of a reduced life span, but with no exposure of any kind, you could dangerously diminish available public and institutional support. Also, if decisions are made to sell a collection, there is no guarantee that items will be cared for in the future. As an example, some institutions sell their deaccessioned costume holdings at auction. This decision to deaccession parts of a collection in order to better care for the rest leaves one cold with the realization that something that was once preserved by a museum may now be lost for posterity, or at least for public access. Private collectors lend their objects to institutions for display or even traveling exhibitions, but usually at a great cost. These costs can include a rental fee, insurance and shipping fees, plus the cost of having a specialist provide descriptions and condition reports, custom-built shipping boxes or crates, travel fees for the lender to attend an opening party, and the guarantee that they will be able to keep the boxes and mounts at the end. It does seem ironic to forbid current generations from appreciating and learning from collections, and preserving them for the future, when we have no idea whether the collections will even be acknowledged in the future. Therefore, use objects today to inform and inspire current generations. In that way, the hope exists of a discerning future for them.

The question to be answered is how best to let your collection be seen while still preserving it. Much has been written about display techniques, and they vary enormously depending on budget and available labor. Margaret Ordoñez and Harold Mailand—in their respective publications, Your Vintage Keepsake and Considerations for the Care of Textiles and Costumes—address various tried-and-true techniques for mounting clothing and accessories and dressing mannequins. Karen Finch and Greta Putnam’s book, The Care and Preservation of Textiles, also goes into some detail about mounting textiles, along with various Canadian Conservation Institute (CCI) Notes on the topic. Please refer to these volumes. Consider professionally mounting small, flat textiles as a means of combining both display ability and long-term storage. Some research collections have mounted their textile samples on muslin or wooden stretchers, either with one corner loose so that the reverse may be viewed, or a hole cut into the back of a mounted textile, in order to examine its reverse.

Some institutions have created permanent storage for flat textiles and quilts that is easily visible to the viewer with, for example, sliding storage panels or pull-out trays.

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