As Chair of ICOM’s Costume Committee I am looking for contributions to our special project “Clothes Tell Stories”, which will be launched at the meeting in Rio. You can see more about our exciting program under “News – next annual meeting” on the Committee website www.costume-committee.org
This project, called an on-line Costume Workbook, is a web-based resource for museums, students and the general public about how to use costume to tell stories: costume is extremely evocative and always has an immediate appeal in museums. Clothes so easily illustrate many kinds of stories because, when correctly used, they bring an extremely personal aspect to our history. Costume Committee members are contributing their expertise in this project to illustrate many aspects of working with historical costume which will be useful for others: terminology, exhibition techniques, successful labels, contemporary collecting, aspects of proper storage and handling, exhibition walk-throughs and much more.
I’m interested in hearing from those of you who have some under-exposed costume in your collections which we might use as illustrations or case stories. We have found unusual, little-known and exciting items of clothing in art museums, archives, historical houses, museums of natural history, university, specialty and technical museums, and these always seem to increase in exhibition value – and contribute to costume history in general! - when a costume expert has been consulted. We are interested in offering how we as costume experts can elicit more information from special items to help tell the stories you want to tell.
As many small and/or specialty museums do not have access to personnel trained in working with costume, we hope the Costume Workbook can help teach how to store, handle and show costume and accessories. This will not only bring less-known historical costume out in the open, but will contribute to creating valuable new contacts between museums and ICOM specialists.
I look forward to hearing from you! Please contact me at [log in to unmask]
best wishes
Katia Johansen
Chair, Costume Committee
http://costume.icom.museum
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Change ICOM-L subscription options, unsubscribe, and search the
archives at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/icom-l.html
|
