Spring 2012 - Dress and Textile Specialists

Glass structures: Peterlee Glass
Motorised hoists for quilts and tapestries: Eagle Designs
Funding: Department for Culture, Media &Sport (DCMS) / Wolfson Gallery Improvement Fund; The
Monument Trust; The Clothworkers’ Foundation; The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF);
The Friends of The Bowes Museum.
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Creating the ‘No mannequin, mannequins in the new Fashion and Textiles
Gallery, at the Bowes Museum, 2008-2010 - Janet Wood, Costume conservation and
display
How do you create a ‘no mannequin’
mannequin? The development of the acrylic
forms used to display the garments in The
Fashion and Textile Gallery at the Bowes
Museum were the result of a statement
from the exhibition’s designer, Claire
Gresswell, of Blue The Design Company, that
she only wanted to see textiles and costume
in the cases, no dead bodies! Her objection
to any anthropomorphic form was that as
soon as there was a ‘visible form’, i.e. a
representation of a human body inside the
costume, the body became the focus and a
distraction from the costume.
A survey was made of all the different types of garment stands previously used in the museum.
They were an eclectic collection of fibreglass museum figures, shop mannequins and garment stands
with different neck heights, paint finishes, poles and bases .
Museum mount maker, Roy Mandeville, known for his work with acrylic mounts, was contracted to
source the acrylic forms. A web search found an Italian company manufacturing acrylic shop
mannequins. These were modern torsos, suitable for some 20thc costume but generally too large
and athletic for historic dress. It was obvious that we would need to create new shapes for costume
from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.
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