Museums

So on Thursday we went on a 'class trip' to the Leeds Discovery Centre near Clarence dock. It is basically a purpose made store for all the items that can't fit in the Leeds museums. We went down to take a look at some of the period clothes they have there but also had a look inside the store itself. It holds over a million items (!) in there so you can imagine if full of some amazing stuff. The dresses shown to us were beautiful but i was particularly amused by the hundreds of taxidermy animals they had. So spooky but weirdly interesting, especially the ones that hadn't had glass eyes put in so they just had hollow eyes; Scary scary. The store had literally everything, Victorian prams, wheelchairs, stuffed birds (in there 1000's), hats, old shop signs. Everything. I got a chance to look at some of the 'straight shoes' from the early 1800's. They didn't use to have left or right shoes, just straights that they had to swap around every few months to stop them from curving to the shape of their foot. Amazing and they are so tiny. It is really interesting to see how body shapes have changed. The lady in charge of costume was telling us how they struggle when the items go on display to hang them on mannequins and alot of the time have to use children sized mannequins, she said for example that a typical mans suit jacket from the 1870's has to go on display on a modern 12 year old boys mannequin now as a modern sized mans mannequin is far to big.

I got to take a look up close at a crinoline skirt, I think it's amusing how fashion over function is the same then as it is now. Doesn't matter how uncomfortable it is as long as it looks good! Topshop recently did a modern take on the crinoline skirt where you can see the built in structure. Just goes to show how fashion goes round in circles.

I'm definitely going to make use of the Discovery Centre, you can book an appointment if you need to look at a particular item (or items) in detail which is handy if you're doing a period piece.

Anyway after going i got the museum bug. (Haha) So me and the boyfriend took a little look around the City museum yesterday. I especially like the history of Leeds room as it had some of the period costumes and items we have been looking at in our production design lectures, it was interesting to see them close up (and also fun to play on the interactive displays). It's free so if you're bored in Leeds town go go.