The Brampton Museum Blog

About the exhibition

Our next exhibition is called ‘A Common Thread’ and will feature three rooms each with a different textiles theme.

• The first exhibition; ‘Fine Art’, presents the colourful abstract fine art textiles from JPR Stitch (aka, Dr Jack Roberts), a fine artist born, raised and educated in Newcastle-under-Lyme and who still lives and works locally. 
• The second exhibition; ‘Craft’, displays home-made textile artefacts selected from the Brampton Museum's collection showing how people from the Borough of Newcastle-under-Lyme have used textiles at home to create and embellish clothes, make artworks and express themselves through thread and fabric. 
• The third exhibition; ‘Industry’, profiles the textile manufacturing heritage of the local area. 

Starting work on the exhibiton

One of the most rewarding things about my job as the Collections Officer is curating exhibitions. We have a wonderful collection and I love delving into the stores and finding objects and stories that reveal exciting histories and then getting them ready for display. As exhibitions are just one element of my work I started to prepare for the two exhibitions involving museum collections (Craft and Industry) several months ago. There is a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into changing exhibitions.

Some of my favourite things in the museum are kept in the textiles store. They very rarely come out because they are carefully tucked away in archival boxes, in a dark storeroom to keep them away from light, this helps to preserve them for the future.  For the past few months we (myself and some volunteers) have been carrying out research, selecting and grouping the objects by theme, deciding how many, how and where to display each piece. We then began to write the informative text panels and labels that accompanies them.
For the ‘Craft’ exhibition one of the themes we looked at was dressmaking.

Dressing the Mannequins

As the exhibition installation date came nearer we began dressing the mannequins ready for display. Although this sounds simple, it can take up to an hour to display just one costume. Unlike the clothes we wear today the Victorian and Edwardian dresses we’d chosen for display weren’t made to standard sizes. So, when we tried to put these clothes onto a size 10 mannequin, they wouldn’t fit.  Ladies fashion from this period was made to be worn with corsets which create a different silhouette than those of women today. Clothing was made to measure, and elasticated stretchy fabrics did not exist. To display and support the costume we use polystyrene mannequins carved to the correct shape. We then have to pad and shape them with extra padding. The Victorian dresses was designed to be worn with a crinoline so we needed to use a replica crinoline to make the right shape.

The Town Crier

A more recent costume – that of the town crier worn by Frank Shufflebotham in the 1980s was considerably larger than the standard male mannequin. The mannequin we used for this needed padded with cushions and acid free tissue to get the shape just right. Because our volunteer Margaret Litherland had (by coincidence!) made the costume for Frank Shufflebotham in the 1980s it seemed fitting that Margaret prepared this costume for display.

Finishing touches

Because many of the fabrics are delicate we don’t iron them. So, volunteer Clara, used a skill from her previous work experience at a charity shop – she gently steamed the clothing to get out the creases!
 
To view these costumes and many more textiles as art, craft and from local industry visit - A Common Thread Exhibition, 20 September – 21 December 2025.