by Colleen Jenkins, 2016 Tom Desilets Memorial Intern
Tomorrow (July 20th) I will officially be halfway through my summer internship. I can’t believe I have been here for 5 weeks already. I feel like I have accomplished a lot so far, especially this past week. Since Stacen (FHC Curator) was on vacation, I was put under the supervision of Laura (FHC Museum Assistant/Education Coordinator) and Katie (FHC Costume Collection Manager), focusing on textile projects and of course, the Dennison Archives.
One of the more fun activities of the week was making new mannequins to display pieces of our textile collection for the upcoming fashion exhibit. Since we are a non-profit, we want to use the money we receive in donations as efficiently as possible. The idea of buying something we could make ourselves does not cross anyone’s mind! Not only does making them ourselves save us money, but it allows us more flexibility with what we can do with them. Fashion has changed rapidly over the centuries, and believe it or not, dresses can be quite different even if they are only decades apart. In some eras women wore corsets to slim their shape, so our mannequins have to reflect that. However, in other eras it was more fashionable to have a fuller waistline, to show that one could afford a substantial diet. Thanks to a lot of cotton padding, we can easily display multiple eras of fashion using the same mannequin as a base.
The first thing needed to make a mannequin is a block of ethafoam (the brand name of polyethylene foam plank) which is durable enough to keep its’ shape while it is being carved, but will not harm the garments if we put them on it. I was given four blocks to carve and one model to go by. From there the process seemed simple: trace the model onto the block, cut it out, cut off the rough edges, and then shape the body accordingly. Katie told me to try to make it as human-like as possible.
This internship has asked me to do a few things outside my strengths. For example, I’m a clumsy person. So I get a little nervous when handling these important and fragile artifacts, even when doing something as simple as putting clothing on padded hangers, for fear I will trip over a gown. I am also not the most artistic person in the world, so I was a little wary of how well I could do this project.
My first mannequin came out the best for some reason, maybe because I hadn’t gained confidence yet and tried to make it a perfect match to the model. But as I progressed through the ethafoam I become more daring. This led me to cut half of one mannequin’s arm off, but Katie assured me that cotton padding could fix that.
In the end I had four mannequins that could pass for human torsos. Afterwards, they need to be wrapped with muslin, cotton, and dress stocking to give them shape and arms. Then we will cut a hole in the bottom and mount them on a stand.
What I have to especially give the staff at FHC credit for is how careful they are with everything, and the perfect standard all of our items are held to. This costume collection is Katie’s priority and not only she take care of it immaculately, but she has taught the rest of us how to do the same. After a week in textiles I am a little less terrified of the fragile dresses, which is definitely progress!