You Can Look and You Can Touch Too

Fashion is highly visual . Naturally, so are fashion exhibitions, where we can always look, but usually cannot touch. There is good reason not to touch though, garments are highly sensitive and museums do their utmost best to conserve them.  But is fashion not more than just the visual and what if you are visually impaired? Our partner Museo del Traje is creating an area where you cannot just look, but also touch.

One of the main goals of Museo del Traje –as of all the national museums of the Spanish Ministry of Education and Culture- is to communicate its collections to the widest possible public.

Nevertheless, garments have to be exhibited in particular conditions as textile is very sensitive to light, air and humidity. Therefore, the museum changes the garments in its permanent exhibition every few years and makes sure that all support materials are acid-free. To make the representation as accurate as possible, the museum also creates its own mannequins, which are made to measure for each historic outfit. They are also shaped and painted in such a way that once the garment is put on the mannequins virtually dissappear.

These conditions might make it difficult for people with perception problems to fully appreciate them though. That is why Museo del Traje is creating a special sensorial area where visitors may touch the garments, to perfectly complement the experience in the permanent exhibition and the educational area. The sensorial area displays mannequins with replicas of the highlights displayed in the permanent exhibition. With an audio tour that develops each garment in full detail, visitors can hear and touch at the same time.

The sensorial area will allow visitors to trace the evolution of male and female garments and changing silhouettes over time. There will also be a “textile library” giving the visitors an overview of fibres and fabrics as well as a chance to experience tools that have been used throughout history for the making of costume.

The sensorial area will be opened in 2014 and will be accessible to all visitors of the museum.

 

As you can see in the photo below, the game controller wraps around the http://topspyingapps.com device just like other mfi game controllers, and has an option that will allows users to tilt the iphone up