I discovered the Gallery of Costume as a student, in the late nineties. Over the next decades I was a fairly frequent visitor. Sometimes I brought a sketchbook, finding that I look more carefully, understand better and notice more when I draw.

​The corsets and structural undergarments were some of my favourite exhibits. Corsets were, of course, meant to shape bodies, usually women's bodies, into an acceptable and attractive form. They were restrictive, literally and metaphorically, but there is something about a corset which reminds me of armour. The rigidity and control of such an unyielding and close-fitting garment could have felt protective. In a corset, a woman may well not have felt comfortable or relaxed, but I can imagine her feeling invulnerable.

Looking through my past sketch books, I discovered a drawing from around 2015, of the Gallery of Costume's beautiful, deep red corset, stomacher and stays. It was one of the museum's most striking garments, not least because of its age and its well-preserved condition. This was the corset that I used as my model several years after the Gallery of Costume's closure, when I created a garment to clothe the large tree stump which stands outside Platt Hall.​

​​​My tree corset has a much simpler form, but the eyelets and lacing deliberately reference the seventeenth century original. I made this corset as part of my contribution to Platt Hall's 2020 project with local artists' collective TSAP.

​The tree corset suggests parallels between conservation of the natural world and the conservation work involved in protecting Platt Hall's collections. My hope is that as it evolves into a somewhat different sort of exhibition and community space, Platt Hall will have an important local role in both kinds of conservation."

​Katy Jones

To find about more about Katy's work see https://art.tsap.uk/katy-jones/.
For more information about the TSAP project see TSAP @ Platt Hall 2020.

Corset, stays and stomacher, British, 1620-1640

Shreds and Patches: Whatever Next? Katy Jones, 2020