Colourful Costumes

With 2 museums in 2 days displaying colourful costumes I was reminded that Brisbane currently has 3 museum displays of fashion. One display was of radical high fashion, one of mainly theatre costumes and a collection of fashion underwear. None of which I have seen as I subscribe to the view expressed by Edmond Capon, a past long serving director of the Art Gallery of NSW, that fashion has no place in a museum. Perhaps he had read Emmanuel Kant’s comment that “fashion belongs under the heading of vanity, and also under the heading of folly”.

But the displays of costumes in Hanoi in the Museum of Ethnology and the Vietnam Women’s Museum perform a different function to ‘fashion’. Superficially the displays appear similar with discrete groupings of 2 or 3 dressed, anonymous mannequins, interspersed with displays of accessories such as hats. It is here that the similarity ends. The Museum of Ethnology quite naturally displays their collection by minority community type, within their more broadly based linguistic groups. The ‘B’ signage is restricted to a short statement and a photo of people wearing similar clothes in their home or community setting. The ‘C’ signage on the item simply states ethnic group and place. There is no indication of when the objects were created or how they were acquired by the museum. Even more importantly the viewers has no sense of whether they are seeing a remnant culture heading for extinction or a vibrant, thriving community.

As you move through the museum space the effect of this style of presentation makes each display simple a specimen example in exactly the same way that the Natural History Museum groups bugs or butterflies by like type. Communities are not separate branches like the multiple branched tree of evolution.

By contrast the permanent main floor collection of the Vietnam Women’s Museum has managed a much more engaging and inclusive atmosphere around their displays. When visiting this space we were asked to consider gender and how it was presented. It simply was not about gender, it was about humanity and life, and about all the most important stages we all experience in one way or another; marriage, family, birth and death. I am prepared to concede that in all cultures marriage is all about the frock, in whatever form the ceremony itself may take. In this museum by discreetly dividing the set pieces of marriage into matrilineal and patrilineal cultures the purpose and functioning of such unions is different; with different expectations and outcomes. There was no sense, at least to this observer, of any tradition being any better or worse than any other; because it was about us and how we celebrate and validate our customs. The museum of Ethnology, however, managed to convey the sense that they were displaying the ‘other’ and not embracing the commonality of humanity.

One final note that may weaken my earlier claim that it was not about fashion, There was a group of 3 female figures from one minority group, the dates of manufacture spread over some 35 years. All are slightly different but use the same traditional motifs in slightly different combinations. There is a common expression in South East Asia, ‘same, same, but different’; I suspect a women curator has picked up on the fairly universal desire both to conform and also have a point of distinction in their appearance. 

Mike Bull