Discovering the project

A young person’s view: Discovering the project

by Louise Moracchini, a Look Again team member.

When I started volunteering at The Salisbury Museum, I had no idea of the wealth of artefacts and local knowledge that I was about to discover. From Edwardian wedding dresses to coats from the Crimean war, Salisbury has revealed itself to be more irrevocably twined with the strands of history than I could have imagined – and the Look Again project has been this road to discovery. This project takes on the previously unseen clothing of history, and transforms them into the people who wore them. 

The project forces volunteers to re-evaluate what we know about fashion history. It’s not just preserving the artefacts themselves, though that certainly is important, it’s about finding out why, when, and for whom it was made. What may have seemed like a 1920s dress of little consequence tells the story of a bourgeois Russian princess, running to Paris from a dreary fate in Soviet Russia! This is, if you hadn’t guessed already, a true story of the Princess Obolenskaya, whose dress will be displayed in the museum with the other Look Again items. 

I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in doing some of the written work on these projects, getting to find out more about some of the items that will shortly be on display at the museum. I write articles, but the work has been varied and interesting, as it should be, there’s always a surprise around the corner! Although I’m not as involved in the more practical aspects of the project, seeing the mannequins grow in shape and personality, and even see some of the dresses in the flesh, is not only pleasing, but inspiring to see the hard work of the volunteers blossom in the display cases.