Celia Reyer, Museum Placement Award Winner 2015

In 2015, Celia Reyer and the V&A Museum of Childhood were awarded the Museum Placement Award.

Celia Reyer was awarded a placement at the V&A Museum of Childhood from July – September 2015. Celia Reyer, MA student at the London College of Fashion was awarded funding from The Costume Society for a three month placement to enhance Celia’s career and support the V&A Museum of Childhood’s costume collection. 

Curators’ Report: Katy Canales, Assistant Curator and Alice Sage, Curator, V&A Museum of Childhood.

During her time at the Museum, Celia has been an enthusiastic addition to the Collection team and made valuable contributions across the whole team. Sadly due to a culmination of issues relating to the Museum’s backlog and Collection Management System (CMS) training schedule, we were not able to concentrate on the Museum’s backlog of children’s clothing as we had planned. Instead Celia worked on enhancing our existing costume collection’s documentation, long-term preservation, accessibility and research. 

Collections documentation:

Celia assisted with the cataloguing, photography, movement and storage of Museum objects in the galleries and the stores.Many of the items had previously not met the minimum cataloguing standard required by SPECTRUM and she was able to greatly enhance their documentation.

Collections care:

To protect the museum’s items of clothing, which had previously been hanging from wooden hangers and were vulnerable to staining and tearing, Celia made a range of padded hangers. Celia was also responsible for successfully auditing our mannequin collection. She created a valuable database of each mannequin’s dimensions. This database will enable curators to identify mannequins for specific costumes more efficiently and with less risk to the costumes. By creating Tyvek covers for each mannequin, Celia has ensured the longer lifespan of these mannequins. Celia regularly shadowed on gallery checks to ensure that items on display were secure, in a stable condition and labelled correctly. Celia designed the artwork for a poster and leaflet for visitors to raise awareness of how our visitors can support the Museum’s preventative conservation programme within the galleries.

Public Access:

Celia supported our work with informal and formal adult learners, subject specialists, researchers, and the general public. She helped deliver a study and handling session for one of our informal adult learning groups by identifying and researching objects for the sessions and delivering a presentation on the objects. At our The Alice Look private view and curatorial tour for the Dress and Textiles Society (DATS), Celia researched clothing from the period (ca. 1865) and developed and delivered an oral presentation and supporting documents. As part of the V&A Museum of Childhood’s commitment to increase public access to the collection, Celia answered a range of costume related public enquiries and supported our researcher days, supervising and aiding visiting researchers. She has assisted in the display of new acquisitions and has developed web content to share her experience with a broader audience. 

Research:

Fancy dress was an area of interest for Celia. After researching the history of fancy dress and exploring our collection, Celia worked with the Museum’s Collection and Exhibition teams to devise a comprehensive proposal for a display of the Museum’s fancy dress clothing in the Museum’s permanent galleries. A date for the installation of the display is not yet confirmed but the V&A Museum of Childhood looks forward to developing Celia’s research and realising a display on children’s fancy dress in the future.

Award Winner’s Report: Celia Reyer, MA student, Fashion Curation, London College of Fashion. 

Working in the Collections department at the V&A Museum of Childhood was an invaluable experience for me. First, it was simply delightful to be in the presence of such a knowledgeable staff in a museum that collects the most intriguing children’s objects I have ever seen. Being American, I have also learned a great deal about British manufactures, products and popular culture through the objects I handled and researched. It was useful to witness the skilled approaches from Curators Katy and Alice. It was also beneficial to learn how to navigate CMS and other resources that assisted with daily tasks. I can certainly apply this knowledge going forward in my career. 

One of the most interesting things about the museum world to me is ‘behind the scenes’. The projects you work on vary in so many ways that you walk away with such rich experience from being onsite. One of my greatest memories was attending the talk by curator, Dr Kiera Vaclavik of The Alice Look. She walked us through the exhibition and spoke about her vision, intense research, challenges and interpretation. I am so thankful to the Costume Society for this award and being able to work at my favourite museum for this placement is an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Thank you. Going forward, I plan to continue my journey as a fashion/history design collaborator and also take on special projects in art direction.