The working life of Museum of London

Last weekend I took some of our lab coats home. We have a washing machine at work but washing powder is of course verboten and I thought they needed some serious enzyme action. I am disappointed. They are not as dazzling as I expected them to be from the TV ads of one of the products I used. But my disappointment probably has another, deeper reason (doesn’t it always?).

I think I was hoping for a complete transformation of these standard issue coats – into what exactly, I don’t know. I am aware that lab coats are mainly meant to be useful, but couldn’t they also be a little bit exciting? That they are not, is probably the reason why we only tend to wear them to protect ourselves from objects (you might think this kind of object does not exist in a dress store, welcome to the freezer room).

Occasionally – very occasionally, I swear – Hilary and I discuss our dream work wear and we have found it to be a tricky business. It is not easy to find something that combines utility with beauty and with the need to preserve (or acquire?) authority. Hilary came upon this beautiful Vogue pattern, which has the added advantage that it is ’straight from Paris’ (via America, mind). It would make a lovely lab coat, but I’m not so sure about the authority situation, and it would need serious customisation to be super-practical.

I always thought my favourite uniform would be a jumpsuit-type-thing. At my last workplace I was known to don my Tyvek suit at the slightest provocation (I kept it in my desk drawer, just in case …). I loved my boiler suit, but even I have to admit that it wasn’t very flattering (white does nothing for me), it didn’t have any pockets and, true to its name, there were microclimate issues.

Having always been an admirer of Constructivist art and design, I thought Rodchenko’s overall might be it (scroll down a bit on this page), but now that I have looked at it again, I’m not so keen on the leather trim. A friend recommended Ernesto Thayaht’s TuTa, which I really, really like, particularly as I have just realised I have a detailed pattern in a book at home. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy also looked very good in his ‘Arbeitsanzug‘.

Maybe a flying suit like the ones popular in the 1980s could work? Here is a beautiful example from our collection:

This one was bought from Austin Reed, oh yes, and worn over a T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves with the suit’s legs tucked into thick, white, woolly ankle socks. The look was completed with Dunlop plimsols, also preserved at the Museum. And this was six years before Top Gun!

I could have suits in different colours, one for each day of the week (or for particular moods) with a lamé number for special occasions. I could even have my name embroidered in a suitable spot, a non-negotiable requirement for the kind of work outfit I’m after.

Or maybe a smock, like the one below, apparently worn by a milkman as a bit of an advertising gimmick around 1900? But who would do the smocking?

Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you do? If you have found the perfect solution, want to share a fabulous customisation job or provide the address of a supplier of practical, yet stylish, work wear, we would love to hear from you! And you don’t have to be a girl.

PS: Gertie Millar’s story will be resumed next week.