Lights, camera …
June 25, 2010 Fashion
Students and other assorted YPs (‘Young People’, as I like to call them these days) are a common sight in the costume store. (Strangely, Hilary and I are ‘fashion’ curators who manage the ‘dress’ collection held in the ‘costume’ store, but that’s another story). They often come alone or in groups, with or without tutors, to look at objects and to ask interesting questions.
The visit recorded in these images (by Richard Stroud, one of the museum’s three photographers) was slightly different. The students had come to take photos for a micro site connected to the web pages of the Fashion History & Theory BA course at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.
Before their first visit, the second-year students had told me what type of objects they were interested in, e.g. something to do with ballet, a frock coat, a pair of shoes, or some such like. I took out a few things they might like, they made their selection and went off to do some research.
For the website they had to provide ‘two different kinds of information about the object: one empirical and museological the other subjective and perhaps popular or personal’. It was the second bit that most interested me. I often find that visitors look at objects in very different ways and I wonder who learns more during our visits.
A few weeks later, the students were back and tried their best to take good photos without a professional backdrop (one day, there will be one!), limited lighting (that’s where the table lamp comes in) and the mannequins and object stands we have. (No objects or dummies were harmed in the process, there was method in the slight madness.)
I love the resulting web pages and am amazed at some of the related illustrations and information the students have found, starting only with the sometimes sparse descriptions from our database. Please have a look here and judge for yourself (wait for the quote to disappear, click on ‘FHT Projects’ and then on ‘Museum of London Website’ at the top). I hope we can do this again (we had a lot of fun as you can see) and I’d love to know what you think.
