Don't Let Me Design Consumer Products

You guys. I just invented something awesome. Coming to an infomercial near you:

PantyStoles

Here is the mind-blowing invention story: We were switching up the dress on the 1920s mannequin and the new dress was looking pretty good. BUT we were having problems with the neckline. For one thing, the V in the front was going just a tiny bit too low and you could see the line where the hard upper torso transitions to the soft body lower torso. We also hadn't put in a barrier layer between the top of the mannequin (not made of an archival material) and the dress. As we contemplated quickly sewing a camisole and padding the shoulders to lift the neckline of the dress, we wondered if there was a faster, easier option. Then our eyes fell on a pair of pre-washed pantyhose. 

Pantyhose + Padding + Draped Like a Stole = PantyStoles

Business in the Front

Panties in the Back

RESULT:

All Day Padded Neckline Hotness

You may now start throwing money at me. 

The Daily Tragedy and Comedy of Artifact Care

Here, in three photos, is a short but gripping tale. Starring: a Padded Hanger.

Anger. Emptiness. Sorrow

But lo! A padded hanger with padded volara clips!

BLISS

Innovation and the World of Tomorrow

The big news at MOHAI this week was that we opened the Bezos Center for Innovation-- a permanent display in our new building funded by Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos (Jeff founded a little local business called Amazon.com).

The public opening was yesterday, but Friday morning was the private VIP brunch. It was high security because both the governor and Mr. Bezos were there, so the planners requested staff help rather than recruiting volunteers. I was assigned to coat check which I was happy about because it was basically just my regular job. Step 1: Assign numbers to incoming clothes. Step 2: Keep clothes in order. Step 3: When asked to retrieve clothing, pray that you have done 1 and 2 well enough to find said clothing before someone gets upset.

Besides all the VIP guests, about half the audience were local school children. They submitted questions for Mr. Bezos to answer during a Q&A, and after the program they got to explore the new displays. Unfortunately, no one asked any hard-hitting questions like What is Anna Wintor like in person? and How hard did Miuccia Prada try to ignore you during all the Met photo ops?

Answer: Pretty hard

The really exciting thing about the child-friendly aspect of the event was that the box lunches were served in adorable collapsable containers. After the event was over, the staff rushed the table of leftovers. I was not alone in being super stoked about all the portable meal possibilities.

Museum Life: Low Pay, Free Branded Swag

Once the morning event was over I went back the other MOHAI building to get some regular work done. One of the things on the agenda was unfolding this large fabric banner which had been wadded up in storage until now. All we knew was that it was from a Soviet display at a 1972 trade fair in Seattle, and that it should be about 10 feet by 12 feet. As we started to unfurl it, it because obvious that those numbers were not even close. We never got it completely flat because we ran out of space, but our estimate was closer to 40 by 45 feet. Oh, and it was also really cool.

Minus the water damage

The panorama function was our only hope of getting it all in one frame

It was this colorful, energetic, almost psychedelic celebration of space exploration and Soviet cosmonauts. To give you a sense of scale, here is collections manager Betsy waving back at our space-journeying friend.

To Infinity Improved Storage-- and Beyond!

Reasons Why I Don't Enjoy Camping

#23: You have to stuff big puffy things into small bags

On Monday I was accessioning a sleeping bag (such is the life of a Seattle textile expert) and I was reminded of how much I don't like the concept of the stuff sack. I mean, I understand that the smaller the bag the easier to tote around, but when I'm getting ready to go to sleep or when I wake up in the morning, the last thing I want to do is play clown car with my bedding.

The bag in question was a brand-new Eddie Bauer bag for sub-zero temperatures, and it came in a medium sized canvassy sack. At first I thought I could do everything I needed (label, photo) without actually taking the bag out of its bag, but eventually I decided that was probably bad practice. So I disgorged it, and it emerged on the table like some slippery larva emerging from an egg.

*BLORP*

And at the bottom of the bag was...another bag! A tiny, tiny lightweight stuff sack for your actual camping needs. My fragile arm muscles fainted at the thought. This thing was easily 1/4 the size of the canvas sack, and I had a hard enough time getting it in that. But I suppose if you are getting ready to climb K2, concerns like "arduous daily stuffing ritual" ranks somewhere below "I need to make room in my gear bag for food" and "I would like to not freeze to death while sleeping."

Amazingly, by living indoors, I avoid all those concerns. No stuffing, no freezing to death. Although now that I think about it, I do sometimes have difficulty with fitting all my lunch tupperware into the bag I take to work.

#3 Being indoors is so nice!

At the end of this week I had a classy indoor adventure. I was asked to speak at the Women's University Club--a historic private club in downtown Seattle. I was reprising my John Doyle Bishop talk and wasn't particularly nervous about it until Thursday when the Seattle Times published a profile of the WUC and it's 100 year history. Why did this make me nervous? Mainly the knowledge that this "oasis of sisterhood" had previously hosted the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Eleanor Roosevelt. Yikes! No big deal. Totally calm.

The lecture itself went really well. In reality the hardest part was the lunch beforehand where I had to be classy and pretend to eat like a lady instead of my usual practice of shoveling food into my mouth.

So in summary: no to stuffing sleeping bags. Yes to food. 

SYTTD Wichita Edition

Last weekend I was in Kansas helping my cousin Laura find a wedding dress. Laura and I are close in age, both only children, and visited each other a lot growing up--so she is the nearest thing I have to a sister. When I called to congratulate her on the engagement I blurted out, "When are you going shopping for your wedding dress and can I come?" Knowing that I can be kind of an exhausting and intense person, I was pleasantly surprised when she replied, "That would be so helpful! Would you?"

Awesome. All this Say Yes to the Dress watching was finally going to pay off!

We went to four bridal salons, three of which were great, one of which was a total bust. The latter seemed promising because their website advertised dresses in our price range and what seemed like a pretty big selection. But actually the selection was small, most dresses were surprisingly expensive, and an overall feeling of grimness seemed to pervade the shop. In retrospect, my first clue should have been the fact that one of the photos on the website was literally a picture of a teenager texting while wearing a hideously garish prom gown.

This photo sums up our enthusiasm for the store

At the last shop I got really excited because they had a PNINA TORNAI KNOCK-OFF GOWN COMPLETE WITH SLUTTY MESH BODICE.

My cousin, who for some strange reason wanted to keep her midsection covered while getting married in a church in front of her family and friends, did not try it on. I texted Olivia the photo and she asked, "Well why didn't you try it on?"

And at that moment I realized that not doing so would be among my life's greatest regrets.

My other greatest regret from the trip was that David's Bridal didn't try to hard sell us one of their "gown preservation kits," (which we saw them attempting to push on other people). My take down of that B.S. would have been EPIC. Here is how I imagined it:

1) No actual conservator would "preserve" a dress by pumping it with chemicals and then cramming it into a little box.

2) I have actually had the experience of opening a wedding dress that had been "preserved" in a box in the 1950s and it was horribly wrinkled, and reeked of chemicals so strongly that we couldn't be in the same room with it. Also, newsflash, the company that had guaranteed it for 50 years was long out of business. So good luck with that.

3) Skip the bug treatment. No bug wants your 100% polyester wedding dress.

4) In your advertisement you mention "museum quality" muslin. Hmm interesting. There is another name for that. It is called REGULAR MUSLIN.

Greetings from the Fatherland

Last week I actually started writing two different posts but didn't manage to finish either and so wound up letting a week lapse. One was about how successful Fashion First Thursday was at MOHAI, and the other was a manifesto about why I feel okay spending a lot of money on clothes.

The former will probably be published in some form eventually, but here is everything you need to know about First Thursday:

1) It was great

2) You can read about the winning Hourglass Footwear design here.

3) No one really listened to my audio tour, but that's OK because I never listen to audio tours when I go to museums. But if you are really interested you can access it yourself from your cell phone! And listen to me talk about things that aren't in front of you!

(click to expand)

4) Nordstrom brought a bunch of stuff from their archive which gave me total shoe envy because our collection of their stuff doesn't even come close.

Drool.

Always say yes to Rococo-influenced 1930s shoes (far right)

5) The only minor disaster occurred when I made the mistake of trying on something at the Prairie Underground table and now I'm in love and it is imperative that I buy this $275 raincoat.

STOP BEING SO FABULOUS

Huh, I wonder why I started writing a post defending my choices to buy expensive clothes??

At the moment I am in Kansas for a very exciting fashion-related adventure that you will hear about soon. During the plane ride it occurred to me that this year I will have visited both my parent's hometowns. In July I was in the Motherland (Montana) for a cousin reunion, and on this trip I'll be spending some time in Wichita Kansas where my dad grew up. I've already seen three women with Mennonite head coverings!!!

Labor Day Roundup of Things

First up, if you live in the Seattle area you should come down to MOHAI on Thursday and enjoy all the free fashion-related stuff we've got going on. Read about it here. And vote for your favorite shoe here. (Those two thoughts relate, I promise)

Last Saturday my friends Curt and Jong had a housewarming party for their new place, and asked people to dress up in something with a hot or cold theme. After much closet-related soul searching, Olivia and I came up with the very abstract idea of "The cooling down of tensions at the end of the Cold War"--which basically meant that Olivia dressed up like someone young in the 1980s and I dressed vaguely like an old Russian lady. In other words: we killed it.

We couldn't decide which of us was Glasnost and which was Perestroika 

On Monday we had an all staff retreat (which technically wasn't a retreat because we just met in the conference rooms at the museum) which kicked off with the facilitators asking us to write our name on a big piece of paper and then decorate the paper with non-work things that we were passionate about. I had a hard time with this assignment because 1) Many of my passions are work related, 2) those that aren't work related sound lame when summarized on paper, and 3) I don't appreciate mandatory craft time at 8:30 in the morning.

(A note about #2: Just about everyone in Seattle is "outdoorsy." They go camping, hiking, canoeing, biking, skiing, and probably hybrids like canoe camping and ski biking. So most people decorated their vision boards with mountains and water and sporting equipment. And while I am totally comfortable with my current life choices to spend most of my downtime watching old DVDs of Law and Order: Criminal Intent with my roommate, it is difficult to draw that on a poster and not look like the saddest person.)

Nobody Understands

I ended up writing three things on my paper, accompanied by half-assed drawings: singing, spending time with friends (illustrated with a TV and a beer), and the slightly work-related but totally honest "Shopping for clothes/ wearing clothes/ thinking about clothes."

In my mind, the prize for the best poster went to my friend Amanda who didn't totally hear the whole assignment and just wrote her name and drew an arrow pointing to it. I saw it and I thought, Yes, Awesome. You know what I'm passionate about? Me. Because me doesn't force me to make cheesy posters.