Blackpool Archive Visit

Blackpool pleasure beach was founded in 1896 by William Bean.  As part of a collaboration between Textiles and Fashion Students we had the opportunity to take a trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for an exclusive tour around the site and also within the Archives and Costume Departments, without forgetting we were aloud to use the ice rink too which was of course lots of fun! In the archives we were able to view some of the more older, vintage looking rides which was a massive comparison to the more modern facilities out in the park itself. This was due to there being a re-branding in 2004 when the Pleasure Beach was taken over by Amanda Thompson and felt like the park needed a re vamp. At least 20 million had been spent regenerating in the past 7 years and there was also the introduction of Nickelodeon Land. Even tough I did manage to get some great pictures and a lot of bright and vibrant colours which I always enjoy using within my colour pallet. I felt like this was quite irrelevant to what I would like to use within my work, however when we visited the costume department this was a different story.

Being given access to the costume wardrobe archive was definitely a great pleasure. It was literally a huge room with thousands of thousands of outfits, dresses, hats stacked upon another.. The bright vibrant colours and various materials were very overwhelming at first! I knew that I would definitely like to look at the detail of the costumes in more depth within my work. So I started to take many pictures close up showing the detail within the garments. Including feathers, sequins and pretty much everything else you could think off! It was a real incite being able to see all the design plans of how the garments are made, and even one of the workers at work herself!