Last week I delivered clothing and equipment from 20 years of expeditions (2004 - 2024) to the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) archives where they will be kept along with records and images of the expeditions they are associated with as a lasting record of materials and design in polar expedition clothing as well as trends in expedition support.
We get very few opportunities in life to leave something lasting behind for posterity, so I am extremely grateful to the RGS for accepting the donation and particularly to Joe Smith and Eugene Rae for championing it.
Before I left, Eugene asked if it was hard to let the items go. I did feel nostalgic as I gathered the items together, each one bringing to mind memories that hadn’t surfaced in years. But as I looked at them all together as a collection, what I felt most was pride - because the clothing traces the journey of women in polar exploration, from the days of the ‘pink it and shrink it’ attitude of outdoor clothing manufacturers right the way to contemporary and highly innovative kit manufactured using recycled marine plastics and sequestered CO2 by a company founded and led by women (here’s to you Groundtruth) …how far we have come!
I was also allowed a privileged glimpse into the treasure trove of the archives and some of the items relating to women explorers of the past - In this increasingly virtual world of ours, it was such a pleasure to celebrate that special connection with the past that we can only get from the material and tangible.