Regarding dress codes, Harry Needham wrote:

>
>May I suggest that you also consider asking your visitors what they think?
>Choosing a uniform and setting dress standards are issues that fairly cry
>out for a front-end evaluation.
>

My response to this is well, yes, but it's all in how you ask the question.

Mystic Seaport has recently drastically amended its dress code, requiring
uniform shirts (although there are actually three different shirts to
choose from) for ALL staff working in the public view.  We did some
front-end evaluation before making these changes, but we did not ask
visitors if they thought we might look better in uniforms, what could they
say?

Instead, our change was "based" on the research finding that visitors had
difficulty finding our staff -- the informality of our appearance detracted
from the visitor experience.

Within the staff, focusing on the visitor experience has allayed some, but
certainly not all of the normal disguntlement in the face of a change of
this sort.

And yes, we do have a section of the policy which speaks to the issue of
excessive visible body adornment for staff not working in historic costume.
Our justification for this is that the appearance of the staff should not
be "more interesting" than the exhibit or the intended message of the
museum may not be heard.

There are visitors who are disappointed that all of our staff are not in
historic costume.  We have some staff daily who are first-person
interpreters, and for them it is always 1876 (except when it's 1841, but
that's a different story).  Otherwise, since most of our interpreters are
discussing the past in the third-person and since our interpretive focus
spans over a hundred years, and since we frequently have women doing what
was men's work in the 19th century, you will identify our staff by their
khaki pants or shorts and blue shirts and caps.

Historic costume, done well (that is with historic integrity) requires that
you limit the time frame of your interpretation.  Since a large part of our
story is about change over time, we choose not to limit ourselves in this
way.  If we were to base a decision of this sort only on what front-end
evaluation using visitor research revealed, then we would have many
inconsistancies plus major costume expense to deal with.

Every site will make decisions, if they are based on budget, mission,
research and a concern for the visitor you will be better served than if
they are based on a reaction to a certain appearance of fashion which may
not be acceptable to some individual in authority.  Nevertheless, Falk and
Dierking's concept of the "Museum Gestalt" and Pine and Gilmore's "The
Experience Economy" can both be used to justify a closer look at all of the
elements in visitors' perceptions of your site, including your staff's
appearance.

Edward Baker




Edward Baker
Assistant Director of Interpretation

MYSTIC SEAPORT
The Museum of America and the Sea
75 Greenmanville Avenue
Mystic, CT  06355  USA

860.572.0711 ext. 5080
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http://www.mysticseaport.org
http://www.alhfam.org

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