The working life of Museum of London

The whole thing started about two years ago with a photo album, which I showed to a researcher looking at gowns by Lucile. According to the notes on our database, one of the dresses had been designed for the actress Gertie Millar and, sure enough, she wore it in one of the photos. That was quite exciting in itself but what really gave me palpitations was a group of images showing Gertie dressed as Pierrot and as Jumping Jack.

At first the obsession just manifested itself in an email to my long-suffering colleagues in Retail insisting that the photographs had to be incorporated, somehow, into our retail offerings (no luck yet, but they have been busy).

Another symptom appeared about a month later when a bric-à-brac shop near my home was selling a pierrot costume. It was an all-in-one made of a cotton fabric in a dirty orangey colour with enormous white pompons and was displayed, spread-eagle, in the window. After a few phone calls to the owner (the shop has unusual opening hours) I finally manged to have a closer look. The costume was very similar to Gertie’s, came with two pointy hats and was a bargain, or so it seemed to me, at £120. For about a week, and despite my usual pecuniary difficulties, I was hell-bent on buying the outfit, not for the museum (there was no ‘proper’ provenance) but for myself, not to wear (I don’t really do fancy dress, unless I really have to) but to keep. This is extremely out of character because I don’t collect things for myself (if you discount books, one should discount books). Eventually I was talked out of the purchase, something I very much regret, almost as much as not acquiring the stuffed dik-dik a few years earlier (that still hurts).

With the costume store refurbishment and the new galleries and all, the obsession somewhat subsided. The only tangible sign was the photo of Gertie on the screen of my annoying, so-called ’smart’ phone. About two weeks ago it started again, but this time with a vengeance (which would account for my blog silence). I was looking for something in the ephemera store and came across this 1920s catalogue for fancy dress, which of course included suggestions for pierrot and clown outfits. I should have known better, but I decided to have another look at the album. Of course, one thing lead to another or rather, Gertie led to Bend’Or, Eileen Molyneux, Margaine Lacroix, Madame Herbert, Attilio Comelli and a whole lot of other people I suddenly felt the urge to know more about.

Have you ever found yourself searching for something on google books and decided you absolutely had to check all 224 results? Have you ever shouted at your computer because ’snippet view’ cuts off just where things seem to get interesting? Or, have you, by any chance, decided to finally go to bed and almost turned off the computer when you suddenly realised that you could try another data combination on the ancestry website and then not switched off the computer and were still sitting in front of it, in your pyjama (or whatever you wear or don’t wear at night) 45 minutes later? Or, and I am particularly embarrassed about this one, have you glared at the librarian when she did not want to give you the key to the archive room where you were going to check a very important object file because the library had closed 10 minutes earlier (sorry Sally)? If you have, you know what I am talking about. One day curiosity will kill the curator or one of his or her colleagues, I’m sure.

Despite all this ‘research’, there a still a few loose ends, books to consult, people to meet, places to see and I am also now wondering whether anyone will be interested in any of the things I found out. Well, you don’t have to read the next few installments but I will have to get it all off my chest. For now have a look at this, it is very lovely.