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 [log in to unmask]
******************