Re: Display of costume idea

I dressed two mannequins, Prince's purple rain costume, and Lori Line's enormous pink bow costume, to rotate on separate discs for five years within the MHS Museum. The discs would rotate and the lights would rise when a visitor pushed the button. Both mannequins were in cases minimizing build up of dust etc. This visitor initiated display cut down on the cumulated lux hours. It also served to expose the costumes to UV/VIS evenly all around. The mannequins were secured to the rotating turntables and, while I do not know the rpm turned very slowly, nothing moved. Both these costumes were in stable condition with no visible changes noted at the time of post exhibit survey. I think our lux hours were averaging at 38 hours per month at 50 lux. It was one of the more successful answers to exhibiting fragile textiles for extended periods of time. I believe we will be using this method again.

Our exhibitions department has come up with an idea to display two mannequin mounted costumes on rotating turntables for an upcoming costume exhibition. At this time, I haven’t received a lot of information from the designer other than the turntables she has investigated can rotate 1.5 to 2 rpm, and that she would like to mount them on top of the exhibit platform rather than flush. I don’t even know which costumes she would like to exhibit on the turntables so I can’t speak to condition yet. I will meet with her later in the week. Before that time, I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts on this “novel” exhibit idea as it’s one I have never come across. I am especially interested in hearing about potential problems/issues involved with such an idea (e.g. vibration, etc). The exhibit is to run 8 months.

Holly Lundberg
Conservator
(312) 799-2069 direct, (312) 799-2369 fax
lundberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chicago History Museum
1601 North Clark Street
Chicago, IL 60614-6038
www.chicagohistory.org

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