Preparing a Museum Installation

Edwardian widebrim

Betsey Johnson on getting older: “Are you going to be alive and miserable or alive and happy?”

Words to live by. Have I said yet, that I get my philosophy fix from Fashion Television and Vogue Magazine? 

Moanday is behind me, so if you're interested, Betsey, I choose alive and happy, which is why I'm surrounded at the moment by hats, vintage velvet hat stands, graphic cardstock hat boxes from the 30's and 40's, and millinery mannequins.

You get the picture: shallow crowned cartwheels, ostrich feather wig hats, Victorian bonnets and movie-worthy slouches, doll hats, and Eugenies call out to me from between protective sheets of acid free tissue paper, as I make final selections for a millinery retrospective that will open in May and remain in place for a full year. I'm also making final selections for a touring exhibit of Titanic-era fashions.  

Although there are a number of chapeau that I've rejected—not iconic enough, too similar to another selection, recently exhibited in another location—I hesitate before sending them back to the archives. I believe the artefacts enjoy being seen. Besides, they make me too darned happy. 

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Moody Moanday

Monday, or Moanday as my friend Brenda calls it, is behind me now. I usually embrace Mondays as I love my work and am always eager to get back to it, but yesterday I had a bad case of the grumbles.

Is there a stylish way to gripe? If there is, I haven’t discovered it yet. I alienate everyone around me and end up in a state where even I can't stand myself. My mother's outlet of choice was to throw china. She made no apologies for smashing tea cups (cheap ones) against the wall. She reveled in watching the broken fragments fall to the floor, despite the fact she'd be the one to have to clean them up.

Maybe it's because she knew her moods would chase everyone out of the house and she'd have the place to herself, with no-one to mess it up, ask her to type out an overdue assignment, or whip up a last minute party dress—things she lovingly and obligingly did on a regular basis. (Once, during a thunder storm when the power went out, she made my father tea by candle heat.)  

With Palm Sunday behind us, I'm coming into Holy Week feeling anything but holy. In some European countries, Palm Sunday is called Willow Day or Flowers Day. If Mom were still alive, we could have celebrated her name day (Iris) with every Daisy, Rose, and Lily in France and Bulgaria. Then yesterday, I could have grumbled to her. She would have put on some tea, listened, and made me feel better. 

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