On February 1, 2011, I
officially completed my MA in Fashion Curation. In our MA show, each student
was given a space to highlight their work.
My MA thesis was titled
Mourning, Memory, Memento: Victorian Mourning Dress and the widow's peak cap.
Our thesis was made up of
two parts, thesis and exhibition design.
The first goal of the paper
is to survey the subject of Victorian mourning in Britain and the significance
it had in the lives of Victorian women, through the lens of previous work done
by early dress historians.
In the section
section ideas from the study of dress history, curation, exhibitions and
colour symbolism related to Victorian mourning are explored through academic
writing, material culture case studies and past exhibitions.
Museological questions
surrounding the creation and use of replicas in museum collections and
exhibitions became central during the research process. These questions are
explored by contrasting two previous exhibitions at Brighton Museum and Museum
of London. My work on the Regency garments for Brighton Museum became very
important to my understanding of the issues surrounding replicas and replica
making. I am not trained as a milliner, but I did my best to create a replica cap for the installation. Much more difficult than it looks!
Information panel
Front view of installation
Close up of the installation
Installation and creator
The exhibition design for Mourning, Memory, Memento was highlighted on the London College of Fashion SHOWTIME website.
http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/JenniferRothrock
A very brief and kind review of the LCF MA Show 2011 and my installation can be found here at Wild Lace's blog:
http://wildlace.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/jennifer-rothrock-ma-fashion-curation.html
I was interviewed by fellow MA Fashion Curation graduate Jenna Rossi-Camus in her review of the show for Worn Through:
http://www.wornthrough.com/2011/02/24/student-showcase-london-college-of-fashion-ma-show-2011/