Workshop 3

Display and Usage.

Musée du Textile et de la Mode de Cholet

9 September 2022

How do children interact with museum dress collections? What models for engagement with costume and fancy dress have been developed by creative practitioners? Abstracts and programme available at this link.

 

Speakers

 

Gerry Connolly (Worthing Museum)

Helen Hancocks

Rachel Hann (Northumbria University)

Anne-Charlotte Hartmann (Studio Abi)

Aude Le Guennec (Glasgow School of Art)

Annebella Pollen (University of Brighton)

Josephine Rout (V&A)

Tony Rutherford (National Theatre)

Dominique Zarini (Musée du Textile et de la Mode de Cholet)

Presentations

The papers below were delivered at the workshop. Thanks to Oscar Fouda for filming and to the presenters for agreeing to share their work.

Gerry Connolly speaks about his experience of curation at Worthing Museum, which has an outstanding costume collection including many children's items.

Illustrator Helen Hancocks discusses her children’s picturebook Why Do We Wear Clothes? Helen’s website is https://www.helenhancocks.com/.

Rachel Hann examines enclothed cognition—the felt relationship between clothing, bodies, and places—including child-specific manifestations such as the 'Batman Effect'.

Anne-Charlotte Hartmann introduces the world of Studio Abi, where children learn about fabrics and clothing through magical, tactile workshops. Studio Abi’s website is https://www.studioabi.fr/.

Aude Le Guennec presents the collaborative interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary research into children and their clothes that she leads. Visit the website https://acorso.org/in2frocc-enfance-et-vetements/ for more details.

In a talk drawn from her pioneering work on nudism, Annebella Pollen examines attitudes to children's clothing at British progressive schools in the interwar period.

Curator Josephine Rout documents the role children's clothes play in the V&A's Japan Collections and the museum's recent exhibition 'Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk'.

Tailor Tony Rutherford talks about dressing children for productions at the National Theatre, including Emil and the Detectives.