Labor Day Mannequin Roundup

Sometimes I think I should rename this blog "Mannequins I Laughed At Today" or maybe start an Instagram account for weird museum clothing displays. I'm gathering quite a collection.

Last weekend I was in a museum in Vancouver, and snapped a pic of this "1920s" mannequin that is clearly an escapee from a mall in the 1980s.

I also saw some pretty good mannequin dressing this week. The EMP Museum in Seattle is hosting an exhibit about the costumes of Star Wars and there was clearly some custom work done for that show.

Standard mannequins don't usually have a "light saber fight" option or a "electrocuting someone with the force" pose. 

I particularly enjoyed this set of Emperor Palpatine mannequins that got increasingly hunched over as he got more evil.

The show was really heavy on costumes from the prequels. There was a lot that was underwhelming about those movies, but they certainly went for it with the costumes. I visited the exhibit with some other costume and textile people and we were going nuts for the fabrics and designs. 

Look at that Sleeve

LOOK AT THAT SLEEVE

That is a good sleeve.

Here are two senator costumes from the prequels. We could not figure out what was going on with this cream colored fabric. Is it woven? Some sort of fused or felted fabric? A combo? Also, how great is that furry muppet coat in the background? Too bad these were probably only on screen for a few minutes on some characters that no one cared about. 

After the Star Wars exhibit I wandered into the "We Are 12" Seahawks exhibit. Other than the Lombardi trophy and a Super Bowl ring, it was pretty light on artifacts. The only mannequin was an outfit worn by one of the Sea Gal cheerleaders. The dressing job was fine, but geez. THAT is ALL they WEAR!?

Crying at Work

A couple weeks ago, the New York Times published a searing article about the work culture at Amazon.com. One of the quotes that stood out was this:

“Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”

Wow. Rough.

I was talking to Olivia about the article though, and she seemed less affected by the statement. She said: "Yeah, but haven't most people cried at work at least once?"

Now, maybe there are those among you who are like, "No way! I've never lost it at work. Your job must be terrible." You also might be someone who doesn't cry much in general, so the idea of getting leaky tear ducts at work sounds sort of foreign.

But even a job you love can be difficult and stressful, and some of us cry more easily than others. The emotions may not even be work-related, but sometimes it comes out during working hours.

Routine work crying can be a sign that your job or some other part of your life is making you emotionally unhealthy, but an occasional good cry can be a therapeutic release that helps maintain emotional health.

As Tina Fey wrote in Bossypants: “Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.”

So where am I going with all of this?

Well, last week I cried at work and it was great. The sob-worthy topic? My beloved choir is ending. I realize how dramatic this sounds, but I'm basically going through the stages of grief. Not in any sort of order, but cycling through a mixed bag of denial, bargaining, acceptance, depression, and anger. On Tuesday, at work, I decided I needed to have a good cry about it. Fortunately for me, I have more appealing options than a discreet meltdown at my desk or a bathroom stall.

For this occasion, I took a page from one of the greatest Project Runway moments ever.

In Season 2, Kara and Zulema realized late in the process that the dress they were making for a team challenge was a mess and they needed to start over.  Kara was exhausted and started to lose it and Zulema parked her in front of the fabric and uttered these iconic words:

"I don't care if you cry and cut, but you're going to cry and cut. You're going to cut at that rate. Do whatever you need to do. You need to work. Don't stop and cry."

(Zulema might do well at Amazon)

In other words, I decided to be productive while crying. I still had two jacket mounts for the Hip-Hop exhibit that needed padding, so I sat down in the conservation lab with my needle and thread, called up my favorite choir tunes on my iPod, and stitched that padding down while shedding some hefty, salty tears. It was totally therapeutic to let it out while doing repetitive, meditative work.

And just when I was in my zone, I looked down and was like...does that spool say West Germany?

HOW OLD IS THIS THREAD?!?!

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

Costume Meltdown

Olivia and I spend a lot of time watching movies and TV together, and sometimes we get sucked in to some pretty ridiculous, trashy, stupid stuff. I'd say I'm embarrassed about it, but I'm not really. I mean, this summer I've basically told everyone who would listen that Magic Mike XXL is amazing and they should run out to the theater to see it right now.

Seriously you guys, it is so good

On the other end of the spectrum is the Hallmark channel show When Calls the Heart which we discovered on Netflix. It is cheesy, chaste, "heartwarming" television at its shlocky best. It takes place in 1910s Canada, and follows a rich young woman who comes to a small mining town to be a teacher. We decided to give it a try because the promo picture prominently featured this:

Hot Mountie? Sure. 

Once we finished Season 1 on Netflix, we discovered that Season 2 had just aired and it was super easy to hunt down on YouTube. Now the costumes in Season 1 had been questionable at times, but about what you would expect from a television cheesefest with a limited budget.

Sort of like a movie musical version of the 1910s

I'm not the kind of fashion historian who can't bear to watch inaccurate costumes. I reserve the right to make fun of them, but can also make allowances for limited funds and artistic interpretation. No costuming is ever going to be 100% accurate and I am capable of chilling out about it.

So believe me when I say that the costumes for this show have a full on historical accuracy meltdown in Season 2. Bizarrely, it appears to coincide with an increase in the show's budget. It is like half the accuracy for twice the money and a huge dose of WHO EVEN KNOWS.

First off, they just decide that all women wear their hair down all the time:

Sometimes with messy side ponytails:

A whole bunch of inexplicable coats show up:

Really? Blue fleece?!?

Then men all start dressing like they are models for L.L. Bean:

I mean, it's a good look, and technically jeans, henleys, and wool plaid shirts all existed in this time period. BUT NOT STYLED LIKE THIS AND WORN AROUND TOWN JUST HANGING OUT.

Most hilariously, Jack the mountie (why are hot historical cops always named Jack?) has this hipster shoulder bag and they DON'T EVEN BOTHER TO CUT OFF THE STRAP PADDING THINGY. 

If I just showed you this picture out of context, would you know this show is set 100 years ago?

But perhaps most ridiculous are all the "fancy" clothes we get when Elizabeth goes home to visit her family. Sometimes costumers do this thing where they fudge a little (or a lot) and try to pick psedo-period styles that align with contemporary aesthetics to appeal to the modern viewer. That's definitely what they were going for with the hair and the menswear, but the "rich lady" clothes look recent but outdated-- like mall prom dresses from 2000 with extra crap glued on. 

The 1910s were all about silver belts and plastic beaded trim, apparently.

Sort of hard to tell here, but this skirt has a high slit and a sheer black overlay. Why???

And SHRUGS! So many shrugs. 

SHINY SHRUGS

The most horrendous looks appear when everyone is dressed up for the evening: 

They bought these dresses off the rack, right?

Maybe the brown one from the JC Penny Mother of the Bride Collection?

And the blue one from...some store...in 1999?

And then I have literally no idea what is happening here:

Summer Updates

It is back to being mind-meltingly hot in Seattle (88 degrees) so I'll keep this one quick. Here are some updates from some recent posts:

Inventory Quagmire

Remember the endless box of little white caps? And I estimated that there were at least sixty in the box? Well, after more than a month of chipping away at it, we finally finished the box.

Wanna guess what the final count was?

70.

70!

SEVENTY LITTLE WHITE CAPS.

But in better news...an update from last week...

The 70s Are Coming 

THE 70s CASE WAS INSTALLED THIS WEEK AND IT LOOKS SO GOOD

The 70s are Coming!

With the wonderful American Spirits exhibition entering its final month, the second offering of my 1920s fashion lecture coming up soon, and last weekend’s Bootlegger’s Bash, it is fair to say that MOHAI is in a Jazz Age mood.

But on Wednesday this week, all that is about to change. Take cover, because the 1970s are coming.

Ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration. There won’t be any programs or lectures or Cher impersonator performances, but there will be FASHION.

(What I would look like on Soul Train)

Remember last year when I was all excited about the opera costumes? Well, they are still up, looking amazing. But the loan period is coming to a close, and we need to put something else in that space. I had a few ideas for other loans to get but none of them worked out. Finally I was like “well, I’m always complaining about not getting enough of our own collection out...”

That case is in the section that tells the story of Seattle from the 1970s to the present. That isn't the most robust section of the artifact collection (it isn't old enough for people to think of donating items) but we still have some cool things.  So I set to work picking three looks which would represent 1970s style, be distinct from one another, look good on mannequins, and not clash horribly.  I am pretty excited about the result.

First up, in the center spot, is this pink chiffon gown and cape made for a DIVA.

Sold by John Doyle Bishop, of course.

On the left will be a hippie look. This is a mix of artifacts and props. The main artifact is the bell-bottom jeans, which were worn in Seattle 1968-1980 and modified over time with hand-sewn patches. I dressed it with two things authentic to the period, but not accessioned because they don’t have Seattle stories: A fringed leather vest someone gave me, and a peasant top my mom wore in the 70s. Hanging off the leather vest is the other artifact: an alligator clip “accessory” with strips of deerskin and beads, made by the donor of the jeans. The pinchy part is a little singed so I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that.

When I was in grad school we were warned that it can be REALLY hard to make counterculture clothes look good on mannequins. The reason being that so much of the look is the attitude of the person inside. A Dior gown is designed to be an aesthetic experience and can still really sing on a mannequin, but a pair of ripped jeans and a T-shirt that once belonged to Kurt Cobain can look pretty lifeless on a form.  So I was particularly pleased with this dressing job, because I think it has lots of visual interest and can hold its own with the gown.

And finally: Menswear. And who better to represent the color and pattern of the 70s than my dearest John?

This is a knitted wool suit with a double-breasted jacket and leather cuffs on the pants, owned and donated by JDB himself. Because I couldn’t resist, I paired it with one of his signature scarves.  I was worried it was a little too much pattern, but then remembered that he wore one of his scarves with a plaid suit when he took Schiaparelli to the Bill Blass show in '72. (Also "too much" might not have been a thing in the 70s).

So do the hustle down to MOHAI and see them in person!

Save the Ward County Historical Society!

This week, everyone was talking about the terrifying New Yorker article about how Seattle may soon be destroyed by a massive earthquake.

At first, most of us were like…

I’ve been hearing about “The Big One” since middle school. Seattleites know about the risk. If you are scared please move so our housing prices will go down.

But then, in the middle of the night, it was hard not to be like…

Or at work, hard not to have an existential crisis while organizing the shoe collection thinking WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT ALL OF THIS WILL BE SWALLOWED UP SOMEDAY

Everything is meaningless.

But I was also reminded of my visit to the Ward County Historical Society while I was in North Dakota. It is a small historical society that had survived one disaster and now was facing another.

In 2011 there was massive flooding in North Dakota including in Minot. The Ward County Historical Society was in the flood zone, and the whole thing was filled with more than five feet of water. They have multiple buildings on their grounds, some of which were two stories and others which weren’t much taller than five feet to begin with. They had enough warning to put most of the artifacts in the attics of the taller buildings, but there was serious damage on the first floor of everything. The site director who gave me the tour was thrown into her position with no professional museum training and had to figure out how to negotiate with FEMA and get the necessary repairs. It was devastating to hear some of her stories but it was also inspiring. The place was beautiful and full of interesting stuff. When you visit small historical societies, usually the worst thing you see is artifacts that look like they have been on exhibit since the Eisenhower administration. Things are coated in dust, sagging and breaking on their improper mounts, and labels are faded and worn. But between the post-flood renovations and the site director's commitment to rotating displays and putting new things out, everything looked fresh and well-maintained.

Plus, the creepiest mannequin they had was intentionally creepy, so points for that.

Igor just helping out at the car show

It also seemed like a pretty active historical society too—they have all kinds of events, including actual blacksmiths who make stuff in the blacksmith shop on weekends.

The scary thing though is that the society is now facing another threat. They are on the North Dakota State Fairgrounds and the Fair is trying to evict them. By one estimate it would take over $5 million to move all the buildings, assuming that all of them would actually safely make the journey. There are many in the community that are fighting to save the museum, but it isn’t clear yet if the effort will be enough. And what does the fairground want with the space? Well, they aren’t being specific, which means it very well might be used for something riveting like storage or additional parking. I was told that one of their main arguments was that the Historical Society isn’t money generating.

IT'S CALLED A NON-PROFIT

You know that prayer about accepting the things you cannot change and having the courage to change the things you can?  Museums should have disaster plans and do what they can to prepare for emergencies, but if a 9.0 earthquake rips through Seattle there isn’t going to be a lot I can do. Fault-lines and floodplains are things you and I cannot change.

In many ways, the bigger threat to museums is apathy, and it is something that we can change.  A community that cares can rebuild. FEMA doesn’t pay 100% for repairs. Ward County Historical Society got back in shape because people gave money and time and resources. But if enough people in the community don’t care about history or museums, they are going to see more benefit in a parking lot than an educational space. Apathy is the real threat that keeps museum workers up at night, and the one we work to change every day.

(If you are interested in keeping up with the Ward County Historical Society, check them out on facebook here.)