This is Unhelpful

If there was a hippocratic oath for museum collections staff it would definitely contain something about leaving behind information in a form which will be helpful to my successors.  We've all suffered through enough collections mysteries to know that an attitude of "I'm going to make up my own weird system to do this!" and "I'm sure I won't forget to finish that project" is a recipe for disaster.

Worst of all are those projects that someone clearly spent tons of time on which resulted in something completely useless. When one of my coworkers started in the department and asked if the collection had ever been inventoried she was told "yes! lots of times!" and shown a drawer full of lists of artifacts. No location information, no images, no condition details. Just a list of artifacts by type.

Anyway, so while working on our collection of fans, I found a note so astonishingly unhelpful I had to laugh. Apparently, some sort of fan expert had been through the box and wrote a summary of what was found inside. Here it is verbatim, IN IT'S ENTIRETY:

1983

Some inexpensive 20th century fans. 

Most fans in this box are last half 19th century. 

A few 18th century fans. 

Three fantastic (no pun intended) fans I’ve never seen before in 35 years of fan research! No other museum has them, including New York Met., Smithsonian, DeYoung, etc. 

Congratulations!!!

There was no included list indicating which fans were which. NONE. Nothing in the box seemed that amazing to me, but I could identify one or two that seemed to be a little different or of somewhat better quality. I spent some time looking at the Met's database and saw a bunch of SPECTACULAR fans which were way more impressive than anything in this box. 

Theirs:

Ours:

Theirs:

Ours:

Which made me think...who even knows what was in this box when the note was written? Or if the note was even placed with the right box!?! I later came across a few fans that, while not any more exceptional than anything I saw on the Met website, were potentially in the same league. But wait...there's more! A couple boxes later I found ANOTHER note, with the same handwriting, full of more juicy information: 

Most of the fans are last quarter 19th century. Some oriental. Some very good fans. A lot of not so good fans. A few should definitely be mended!

Without any hint of the object numbers or even a vague description or list there was nothing I can do with this information other than throw it away. 

JK I put both notes up on my bulletin board and am going to laugh at them every day. 

What It Says On The Tin

Most of the time, re-boxing items and organizing shelves is deeply satisfying. But sometimes I am a little sad to say goodbye to ridiculousness of the old boxes. As annoying as it can be, you sort of have to laugh when you discover aging boxes helpfully labeled "miscellaneous feathers and fur bits" or "stuff from green table, moved 4/22/72."

This week I said goodbye to a personal favorite.

There is a section of accessories that is sort of a big mess, but which a few volunteers are helping to inventory. It includes a mix of archival boxes and boxes that were made long before anyone had an inkling that "archival" was a thing. On one of those shelves was this box:

Ok, sure, I thought to myself the first time I spotted it. Could be a muff with some pheasant feathers. Could also be something completely different and it is an old label. Let's find out...

WHOA...

THAT BOX DELIVERED ON ITS PROMISES. It is basically just AN ENTIRE PHEASANT that you can put your hands inside.

It is SICKENING, both in the traditional use of the word, and the drag queen use.

So now it has a better box and a label with its picture on the outside. Which is better for it, but there was something about the old box and the WHOA THE BOX DIDN'T LIE surprise that every time had me like:

Quagmire Surprise

One of the tough things about collections work is that you can have a great plan for what you want to get done that day, and then just unexpectedly wander into a giant project that takes multiple days to resolve.

This week I was looking for interesting deaccessioned artifacts for a hands-on activity I'm doing at the museum. I wanted to show some examples of different kinds of damage (fading, bug holes, silk shattering) and I remembered seeing some boxes in storage labeled "examples of deterioration." I found them and brought them into the conservation lab to take a look. Sure enough, the boxes contained a bunch of super sad, damaged, crumbling-to-bits objects.

As I began looking at them I started to see accession numbers and I got nervous. These items were deaccessioned right? I mean everything is jammed together and there are like three dresses just wadded up in the bottom of this box. These aren't STILL ARTIFACTS ARE THEY?!?!?!

Oh yeah. They were artifacts.

I was reeeeeelly close to just closing the boxes back up, putting them back on the shelf, and pretending like I didn't see anything.

But no. I was in this mess and the only thing to do was to take the time to properly sort it out. I got out new, bigger boxes that would fit the items more comfortably. I re-packed everything and wrapped the boxes for freezing (since some of the "condition issues" were bug damage I wanted to be safe). Once they are out of the freezer I'll go through them more carefully, officially proposing some for deaccession and do my best to stabilize/clean/take care of anything we really should be keeping.

Once I went through everything, I actually discovered that the two items that were in the worst condition had already been deaccessioned.

...but one of them had a Seattle label.

Designer Label Freakout

As a Seattle-based fashion historian I try not to be too elitist and couture-focused when discussing clothing. Fashion is not just for the rich! Practical clothing can be stylish! Plaid shirts are sexy!

But today I'm going to tell you the story about how I nearly had an excitement-induced heart attack when discovering a famous Paris designer label on something in the museum collection.

A volunteer and I were preparing a dress for display and something was funny about how the hemline was hanging. So I decided to steam it a little bit. It was a 1920s evening dress with sequins, and I knew that sometimes sequins from that period can be made of gelatin and can literally melt. So I decided to turn the dress inside-out and be extremely cautious. As soon as I had it inside-out I spotted it:

I was basically like:

Jean Patou was an innovative couture designer in the 1920s and early 1930s (he died in 1936). In his time he was on par with Chanel in influence and success. If you google image search him you will also discover that he was dapper AF: 

Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, PD-US

via perfumesociety.org

After calming down a little...

(It took a while)

...I spent a little time researching the donor.  Her name was Edana Collins Ruhm, and this is what she looked like on her wedding day in 1906:

MOHAI collection

Her father was the fourth mayor of Seattle, and she grew up in luxury in the Collins mansion. Her husband died young, and so she spent the next 50 years of her life as a widow. She travelled, she gave lectures, and generally appeared to live it up. The travel included frequent trips to Paris, and she was described in the Seattle society news as wearing Patou, so it isn't some weird coincidence that she donated this dress. This was her dress.

Ok, ok, enough background. Here it is:

 BAM

This is some HIGH LEVEL HARDCORE MUSEUM QUALITY FASHION

Also, look again at the wedding photo and then look at this dress (c. 1925-26). What better illustration of the seismic shift in women's fashion between the turn of the 20th century and the 1920s? She was in her twenties on her wedding day-- all frothy and demure in ruffles -- and in her forties when she purchased the dress above. 

DAMN GIRL.

GET IT.

also can we just recap the fact that THIS DRESS IS IN THE COLLECTION I MANAGE AND HAS A LEGIT MISSION-RELATED STORY

(It is on display now if you want to see it in person)

Horrors In The Hat Collection

Ok, just a regular day doing inventory on the hat collection. Just pick up the next one in the box...

Ok, looks like we've got a child's faux fur cap with some brown decorations.

Wait...

What the?

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHY?? Why would you put this on a hat?? Why is it upside down? Why is the rest faux fur and this little bit real?? Why is it furry if it is supposed to be a bird?!?!

OH CRAP IT IS LOOKING INTO MY SOUL

Inventory Quagmire

I've found that I use the word "quagmire" I lot in my work. Like, "I can't even think about the flag quagmire right now," or "no one wants to vacuum that rack because it is just a quagmire of ruffles."

Oooh! QUAGMIRE OF RUFFLES.

The existence of any quagmires in the collection is basically due to having an overwhelming amount of stuff. As I've mentioned before, museums are like icebergs. What you see on display is just a visible nugget of a hidden behemoth. MOHAI went through a long period where we took everything offered to us, and the sheer volume of stuff often makes my head spin.

It is most common to wander unknowingly into a quagmire during inventory. Most of the time inventory is pretty fun because you get to discover things in the collection that no one has looked at in years. Sometimes you can get a good pace going and maybe get through a couple boxes or even a couple shelves in one day. But then you open a nightmare box and BOOM you are stuck working on it for weeks.

BOTTOMLESS BOX OF LACE BITS

What makes a box a quagmire is one or more of the following issues:
-Items are small and the box is packed full
-Box is disorganized, items are in poor condition, and it is difficult to locate numbers
-The box is full of FICs and items that aren't already listed in the database, so you are creating completely new records as you go.

Right now I am in a quagmire of baby caps.

The thing is, individually most of these are quite delightful. Most are handmade and are beautiful examples of home crochet, knitting, tatting, lacemaking, and sewing. They are each different and I can see why someone thought they were worth saving, and why a museum might be an appropriate place.

But I think this box I'm working on right now must have 60 little caps in it. Opening it for the first time felt like:

When you look at the box as a whole, there are just stacks and stacks of flat little white caps. And it is box 1 of 3 in the baby hat section. That is TOO MANY CAPS!!!!!!!

The Many Faces of the Shoe Inventory

The inventory of the shoe collection is almost done! It has been interesting and exciting, and I've gotten emotionally invested in some of the discoveries. My volunteers and interns have become familiar with my shoe-related mood swings.

Here are the four most common emotional states of the shoe inventory:

When a gorgeous pair of shoes in perfect condition turns out to have no Seattle story whatsoever:

We can keep them for "study" purposes...or something...

When a pair of shoes that are stained and falling apart turn out to have a rare Seattle label:

Can we not pay the light bill for a month and put some more money in the conservation fund?

When a pair of shoes that are in poor condition have a non-local label and the database says explicitly that they were worn on the other side of the country. 

DEACCESSION CANDIDATE

When a gorgeous pair of shoes are in excellent condition and have clear Seattle provenance:

I may have screamed "WALLIN & NORDSTROM!!!" while peering into a pair of boots on Friday. 

Could It Be...?

One of the projects I'm working on right now is an inventory of the shoe collection. It has been very exciting to come across items from Seattle businesses and pieces that are just downright fabulous. But this week we were presented with a little bit of a mystery.

On Friday this relatively benign pair of shoes was up next to be photoed, measured, and condition checked:

My intern, faithfully updating the record in the database stopped and commented, "So...in the description it says 'Shoes said to have been made for Julie Andrews in the 20th Century Fox Movie The Star'...what does that mean?? Did Julie Andrews wear those shoes???"

Instinctively skeptical, I brushed it off. (MOHAI also has a bloody scarf that Mrs. Lincoln apparently was wearing on the night of the assassination. I looked into it and there is a 98% chance of that claim being totally hooey).

The only thing that gave me pause was the fact that there were marks on the soles that looked like they had once been taped with masking tape. That is a short-term solution for giving shoes some traction on a smooth floor--often seen on shoes worn for fashion shows or in the theater.

Then there was a second pair with a similar claim in the description:

These also had tape marks, including on the inside. AND they looked like they may have been painted to go from red to gray. All touches consistent with quick-fixes for costuming purposes.

Then there was something else nagging me. Guess who donated the shoes?

Who else?

John Doyle Bishop, connoisseur of the fabulous and friend to the rich and famous, seems to be JUST the kind of person who would enjoy owing a pair of shoes worn by an icon.

Seems about right

The more I thought about it the more I thought it COULD BE. I mean, it's not like the record was claiming that these were Dorothy's ruby slippers. As fabulous and amazing as Julie Andrews is, Star! was not a big hit and Hollywood churns out hundreds of movies each year. Clothing pieces worn by stars in lesser-known pictures must end up somewhere. 

In total, there were actually four pairs of shoes and one hat in this donation, all claiming to be from this movie, all worn by Julie Andrews, all donated by JDB. I did some research and the costumes for Star! were done by Donald Brooks, the New York-based fashion designer who also did costumes for movies and the stage. And GUESS what Seattle store sold Donald Brooks??

This is a sketch from the Seattle Times advertising a special showing of Donald Brooks clothing at John Doyle Bishop's store in 1968- the year that Star! was released. 

I don't think that this evidence is conclusive but I think it makes the claim plausible. What do you think? Obviously the next step is to find a copy of the movie and scrutinize the footwear!