Crafting Everyday Fashions in the Twentieth Century: An analysis of handmade womenswear and accessories in the Worthing Museum costume collection

这个合作项目将探索WMA的20世纪服装系列如何提高人们对自制女装的理解，重点是女帽和配饰的生产。Worthing博物馆（WMA）的服装收藏包括3万件，是英国最大的服装收藏之一。在2018年的一项调查中，英格兰南部、东南部和西南部的博物馆和其他机构的服装收藏将其描述为“宝石”。WMA不像其他博物馆那样，收藏名人穿过或著名设计师设计的昂贵服装，而是采用非典型的收藏方式，为分析非精英服装和将高级时装传播到普通女性的衣橱提供了一个独特的机会。这仍然是时尚研究中一个研究不足的领域。基于这些藏品，这项研究将对1910年至1960年的帽子制作和佩戴方面展开新的研究，当时戴帽子是所有社会阶层女性的日常活动，制衣技能是许多女性家庭技能的一部分。这项研究将在开展社区活动的同时开展基于收藏的历史研究——包括举办讲习班、口述证词收集和展览——与当地团体合作，加强受众发展和公众参与。这项研究是及时的，因为WMA进入了一个令人兴奋的结构和概念重建阶段。通过一项耗资数百万英镑的雄心勃勃的新项目，“让光进来”（Let the Light In）将彻底改造博物馆。WMA的目标是通过建立一个服装研究中心来成为一个卓越的中心，作为一个地区和国家的资源，将从一个新的角度来研究它的收藏，与今天的设计师、制造商、学生和历史学家合作。因此，该项目将在服装历史的一个未开发领域产生原创学术研究，并在重大制度转型时期为WMA的文化产出做出重大贡献。

This collaborative project will explore how WMA's twentieth century costume collection can enhance understanding of home-made womenswear, with a focus on millinery and the production of accessories. The costume collection at Worthing Museum (WMA) includes 30,000 items, making it one of the UK's largest. A 2018 survey, Dress Collections in Museums and Other Institutions in the South, South East and South West of England described it as 'a gem'. Rather than collecting expensive garments worn by famous people or created by celebrated designers - as has been the priority of other museums - WMA's atypical collecting practices offer a unique opportunity for the analysis of non-elite dress and the dissemination of high fashion into the wardrobes of ordinary women. This remains an under-researched area of fashion studies. Based on the collection's holdings, this research will develop new lines of enquiry into aspects of hat making and wearing, c.1910-1960, when hat-wearing was an everyday practice for women across all social classes, and dressmaking skills were a part of many women's domestic repertoires. This research will develop collections-based historical research alongside community activities - including making workshops, oral testimony collection and an exhibition - working with local groups and enhancing audience development and public engagement. This research is timely as WMA enters an exciting phase of structural and conceptual redevelopment. Through a multimillion-pound ambitious new project, "Let the Light In" will substantially remodel the Museum. WMA aims to become a centre of excellence by establishing a Costume Research Centre as a regional and national resource that will approach its collection from a new perspective, working with today's designers, makers, students and historians. This project will thus generate original academic research in an undeveloped area of dress history and contribute significantly to WMA's cultural outputs at a time of significant institutional transformation.