Starting Points

Offered the opportunity to be an extra pair of hands organising and developing an exhibition on Hat Trimmings at Hat Works, Stockport seemed too good an opportunity to miss. The offer has led to a multitude of firsts and exciting discoveries that will overflow in these pages in the next few weeks, with some behind the scenes images and details of what it takes to create an exhibition and some focus on those taking part in the exhibition.

How to begin: Should the exhibition look at the chronology of trims or be focused on materials. The latter was the chosen starting point. First things first was to assess what the museums collection had to support the exhibition before deciding what materials to include. So a look through the museum on line archive which at present doesn't show all object images but is getting better day by day, produced some ideas, but the only way forward was to venture into the archives.

There is something magical about being in an archive, what will be unearthed and whether the description on the outside of the box will marry up to what's inside. In someways like a child at Christmas, hats and trimmed nestled in Acid free tissue paper, never sure of the colours or quality wrapped beneath.

a very beautiful box of feather trims