Is the icon as exhibit changing the face of conservation? A comparative study into factors affecting textile conservation decisions in two recent blockbuster costume exhibitions

Abstract

This dissertation aims to shed light on the changing spaces and circumstances of textile conservation for contemporary costume exhibitions with the advent of the blockbuster spectacle. Textile conservators have had to react to these changing circumstances through myriad resourceful, creative and collaborative means to ensure that innovative display decisions are not at the expense of object preservation. Impacting factors including the space, the objects, the team, the design, the time, the money, the tour, the mannequins and the audience have each been discussed broadly and in the context of two recent blockbuster costume exhibition case studies; David Bowie Is and Isabella Blow: Fashion Galore!.
While different in many respects both exhibitions offered extreme examples in exhibition design and object display for textile conservators to contend with, an extreme which is fast becoming the norm. Both exhibitions involved the combined skills of a wide range of museum and external specialists to create their unique, immersive experience. Furthermore, both exhibitions were from single owner archival collections with costumes selected, conserved and displayed to conjure up the personality of their wearer. Together, these two exhibitions pose a number of contemporary challenges for textile conservators to work with, and within; a way of looking at blockbuster costume exhibitions, not from the ‘what?’ but from the ‘how?’