Christine Fisher-Lathwell – Faking movement in the clothes

Christine: The look when I first went into Display was that you got a pin, some nylon thread and you took the hem of a skirt, fastened the nylon thread in and pulled the skirt out as if it was being blown in the breeze. But after a while, after many years, that type of thing went out because it was too difficult for the ladies to get in the window without tripping over the nylon thread, and so I found a method of making the hems of the skirts stand out. I got some fairly sturdy but softish wire and I would poke them down the hem and thread them through the coats, so the coat would be doing that as if it was being blown in the wind. The problem was (laughs) when I started doing that the hems got a slight hole in and of course the dress got ruined, so I had to stop doing that after a while. So, the whole idea of making the clothes move tended to stop. You just felt you couldn’t do it anymore because it was ruining the clothes. I’d forgotten about that style of display, but the wire was a lot easier.

Simon: The idea of the movement is interesting.

Christine: Yes, so you could make the wire go like that at the front and …

Simon: So it wasn’t just a straight line, it had a wiggle in it.

Christine: That’s right, so you got this sort of not pleat but a curved fluted look as the skirt came down, so it was a good idea but it did ruin the clothes so Mrs Barrow told us to stop it.