The V&A has extensive experience of preparing costumes and textiles for display and travel and regularly has several exhibitions out on multi-venue tours at any given time. Most costumes are sent ready dressed on mannequins. Initially, simple fabric-covered torsos were used but modifications to the design and fixings of fibreglass mannequins to ensure their structural stability has facilitated more complex dressed mannequins to be sent out on tour.
Conservators have worked closely with V&A Technical Services to facilitate the safe travel and installation of objects through the refinement of packing processes and standardized systems that are easy to follow. Costume mounting itself is an essential part of packing systems, the bespoke padding and underpinnings providing crucial support for traveling garments with a system of protective padded covers and bags used to restrict movement in transit.
Clear documentation has been crucial to this process, objects sent on loan will have a condition statement, object packing note (for internal soft packing), crate packing note and installation/de-installation note, and reference images. This level of detail has allowed for a relatively smooth transition to the world of ‘virtual couriers’ hastened by the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the number of in-person couriers sent out with exhibitions and loans has been drastically reduced it has not been dispensed with entirely, and a risk-based approach is taken to determine when and where they are needed.
