Weeks Ten and Eleven

Week ten was spent at Hampton Court, preparing mannequins for display and artifacts for shipment to the Royal Fusiliers Museum at the Tower of London.

Enough said.

Week eleven was madness, but in a good way. Monday and Tuesday was spent conserving the chin strap of King George V's bearskin hat. It was a lot of not-very textile conservation work, such as cleaning the brass rings with ethanol and applying a liquid consolidant to stop the leather from powdering everytime you look at it. I also spent some quality time working with a magnifying light, so I could sew the strap back together through the original (and very tiny) stitch holes.

Wednesday... let me start off by saying that I am not making this up! The regiment sent their minibus to move the artifacts and mannequins back to the Tower. They sent not one but three flesh and blood Fusiliers, in full uniform, to ferry us over. Three interns and three soldiers in a bus, it sounds like the beginning of a long joke (or, if that joke were being told by a flooring associate at the Home Depot, a dirty joke). For the most part they ignored us on the hour and a half ride over and we interns talked amoungst ourselves, but its not everyday that you get driven around by a soldier. I was still without a functioning camera at that point, otherwise I would have taken a sneaky photo.

Thursday I woke up and my only thought was 'George's head'. There had been so much talk and so much prep work, I could hardly believe that it was finally the day to see him all together. His incredibly detailed, life-like head arrived on Thursday and we could see him put together for the first time. I have a photo of him but it doesn't seem right to publish it before the museum is open to the public, so you will have to wait for that next week.

There were also the modern uniforms to begin installing. The primary challenge with them has been the boots. We had to get modern boots from the regiment's stores because we had to cut up the backs of the boots so they could fit on rigid mannequin feet. These boots have been polished and every time you handle them, boot polish flakes off. Like this.

I came up with a protective cover so the polish doesn't transfer to the pant legs of the uniform (it's essentially a foam spat) and it looks like this.

Exhibit installation involves lots of frantic work, followed by a lot of standing around while very important last-minute decisions are made with lots of imput by everyone in the building who could possibly have an opinion. A long process, but I love every minute of it. So that was my crazy week.