I have prepared mannequins for several exhbitions. I've carved some from
ethafoam blocks, and I've also altered dressforms and mannequins from store
displays. Carving ethafoam can take some practice, but this approach is
extremely flexible. If you make a point of making your body too small, you
can pad out as needed. (You'll have to pad it lightly anyway to protect the
garment fromt eh roughness of the foam). You can easily carve down any areas
that are too large. Store mannequins and dress forms, on the other hand,
have very little flexibility of shape.
The biggest problem with modern mannequins when used for clothing pre-1960s
is that they are shaped all wrong. The torsos have a more athletic build
(more muscular backs, wider shoulders, etc.) and are often posed with some
torque in the body (even just the torsos often have one shoulder highter
than the other) which creates the impression of an attitude quite out of
keeping with the clothing being displayed. The breasts are in the wrong
place, the shoulders aren't rounded the right way, the backs are too broad.
I had one experience in particular where I tried to mount an 1860s gown on a
modern torso and I wound up having to hacksaw so much of the original
mannequin away that I had to reinforce the whole thing with ethafoam
inserts. And it still wasn't quite right. I would have been been better off
starting from scratch.
The other word of advice I have is to try to find period photographs of
garments from the same time as the one you're mounting to use as guidelines
for how the mounted dress should look. (where should the fullness of the
skirt be, how smoothly should the bodice fit, what is the corset shape
beneath the dress--this last detail you can carve right into your ethafoam)
Also look for clues at the garment itself. Where are the stress points, dirt
lines, grainlines, pin holes? Don't look at other exhibitions for
guidelines--you're only seeing what some other preparator has thought the
clothing looked like. I have seen beautifully photographed exhibition
catalogues with mounting errors. For example, a dress from the early 1870s
(which had an elliptical skirt shape, fuller in back than in front) was
mounted with an earlier skirt profile (equally round all the way around),
which really stood out because the skirt had rows of ruffles which hung at
an odd angle since the skirt front was pushed out too far.
It's a bit like being a detective--the clues are in the garment, you just
have to really _look_ for them.
Good luck!
Astrida
******************
Astrida Schaeffer, Assistant Director
The Art Gallery
University of New Hampshire
Paul Creative Arts Center
30 College Road
Durham, NH 03824
(603) 862-3712
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