Plastic Fantastic? audio description: Plastic in the home

Plastic revolutionised home life in the twentieth century.  

Plastic made everyday goods easier to produce, buy and use. It offered a wide range of materials with different properties and styles.  

Plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene were used for kitchen storage, packaging and utensils. For some families, plastic meant their first set of matching plates. Plastic was a hygienic and stylish option for cosmetic items. Toothbrushes, combs and containers were made from water-resistant plastics like polystyrene. Plastics also made it into clothing with man-made fibres like nylon. 

Plastic was used in incredible new inventions in home entertainment. Vinyl, cassette tapes and CDs made music and video part of everyday life. Iconic plastic toys such as Lego and Barbie dolls became household favourites.  

Plastic was a designer's dream. It made twentieth century style expressive and experimental. Plastic brought pops of colour and new patterns and shapes to homeware - from art deco to playful novelty. 

This section of the exhibition features three small room setting displays with objects on open display. The room settings are on a raised plinth and there is a wooden barrier in front of the displays that runs across the back of the room. There is a sloped ledge at the top of the barrier, where you will find the tactile objects and braille labels.

The first section shows plastic objects in a kitchen display. It has a striking black and white tiled floor in a classic checkerboard pattern. At the back, there is a 1950s freestanding kitchen cabinet. The cabinet is wooden. It has two cupboard doors at the top and two at the bottom. The doors are painted a pale duck egg blue. They have black handles. The top two doors have corrugated glass window panes.
Towards the front of the display, there is a kitchen table. The table is rectangular with dark wooden legs. Its top has a bright red wipeable covering made from Formica, a type of plastic laminate. Hardwearing and easy to clean, laminates like Formica were very fashionable in post-war kitchens. They could also withstand hot pans resting on the surface.
Can you imagine a family sitting down to their tea around this table? What might they chat about over their meal?
The cabinet and the table are full of plastic kitchenware in a range of bright tone and pastel colours. They include utensils, food and drink storage and table ware.
A plastic light fitting hangs down from the ceiling over the table. It is a domed white pendant with blue ridges in concentric rings, creating a striped effect. There is a small clock mounted on the wall behind the table. It’s bright red to match the table. The clock is circular with four moulded shell decorations giving an art deco feel.

The second room display represents a living room. A white wooden stepped storage unit divides this area from the kitchen space. The room has a dark orange carpet.
There are a variety of plastic household objects on the shelves of the unit. They include decorative items like a bright red lamp. Other household items include a radio set, a black rotary phone handset, and a vintage Dansette record player in red leatherette.
There is a 1950s bucket chair in the back right corner of the room. Its large plastic seat is made to mimic willow in a basket weave but is in a bold black and yellow striped design. On a small shelf above the chair sits a vase of flowers. The vase and flowers are all made from plastic. The vase is a translucent red with a textured diamond pattern, designed to imitate cut glass.
On the floor of the room, there are several plastic toys, seemingly left after children have finished playing with them.

Key object: Bush television, model TV22, 1950s
Bush, Bakelite (phenol formaldehyde)
In the back left corner of the room next to the stepped shelving unit is a 1950s television set. It is the iconic TV22 model made by Bush. It is made from Bakelite. The shiny dark brown of Bakelite mimics dark polished hardwood but was much less expensive. This made it the cheapest television on the market in the 1950s and meant many people could afford access to television for the first time. Many families bought this TV set so that they could watch the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
The TV set is a squat cube with rounded edges and mouldings. It has a 9 inch screen with rounded corners in a fisheye effect. Families would have gathered around to watch black and white images on the small screen. There are in built speaker grills underneath the screen and wrapping around the sides of the TV unit. Round dials either side of the grill were used to tune the TV.

Key object:
Beehive wool holder, 1948
NB Ware for Patons and Baldwins Ltd, urea formaldehyde and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
There is a replica of this object available for you to touch. It is mounted on the sloped ledge of the barrier in front of you and is positioned about a quarter of the way along from the left-hand side, just after the second pillar and in front of the red kitchen table.
This wool holder was made for the Wakefield based company, Patons and Baldwins Ltd. They produced a variety of yarns for knitting under their Beehive brand. The wool holder is beehive shaped to promote the brand.
It is made from a hard-wearing pale blue opaque plastic. It is conical with rounded ridges. A bright yellow plastic strap is attached to the top of the cone. The strap would have been worn around the wrist whilst a knitter was working.
The base of the holder unscrews so the wool can be placed inside. There is a hole in the centre of the base where the wool would be pulled through for knitting. The base also has an in-built needle gauge with holes for different size needles. Raised numbers underneath the holes correspond to the needle size.

Key object: Toy record player, 1970s
Marx Toys, high impact polystyrene, polypropylene and metal
There is a replica of this object available for you to touch. It is mounted on the sloped ledge of the barrier in front of you and is positioned about half the way along from the, just after the third pillar and in front of the white stepped unit.
This miniature toy record player was battery powered and came with its own records that spun at 78rpm. Moulded from lightweight but hardwearing plastic, it meant children could have their own affordable music player just like the grown ups!
The record player’s simple, bold design is brightly coloured. A bright yellow record plate sits on a dark turquoise base. The plastic tone arm is bold red. It is decorated with raised musical notes.

Key object: Brownie Hawkeye Flash camera, 1950s
Kodak, Bakelite (phenol formaldehyde), glass and metal
There is a replica of this object available for you to touch. It is mounted on the sloped ledge of the barrier in front of you and is positioned about three quarters of the way along from the left-hand side, between the fourth and fifth pillars.
This classic mid-century box camera helped make amateur home photography part of everyday life. It was easy to use with a simple point and shoot mechanism and its plastic casing made it affordable and accessible. More families were able to capture memories and fill up albums with treasured snapshots.
The camera has Bakelite’s distinctive polished brown finish. The deep box camera is moulded in a sleek art deco style with rounded corners. At the front of the camera, the lens is mounted on a vertical metal plate down the centre. A horizontal metal plate sits below the lens with the Kodak logo. The sides of the camera have moulded ridges and there is a metal dial on one side to move on the film. The camera has a carrying strap at the top.
This model of the camera was compatible with a flash gun unit, that would have been bought separately.

The final room display is a dressing area in a bedroom, where you might imagine someone is in the middle of getting ready for a night out on the town.
In the back corner of the space is a wooden dressing table in a mid-century style design. It has a matching stool with wooden legs and a padded black leather seat. The table has a mirror attached and two drawers. The bottom drawer is open.
A range of plastic cosmetics and fashion items have been left on the dressing table set, on the table and in the drawers. They include vanity sets with handheld mirrors, hair brushes and combs, make up packaging, and appliances like a pale pink hair dryer. On the right hand wall, a turquoise green mini dress made from a synthetic fabric is hanging above the dressing table, ready to be worn.

Key object: Hair rollers set, 1966
Carmen, phenol formaldehyde
There are replica rollers from the set available for you to touch. They are mounted on the far right hand side of sloped ledge of the barrier in front of you.
The set includes 17 hair rollers made from a thick milky cream plastic. The rollers are cylindrical with spikes around the body of the tube. They each have a metal fixing at the base where they sit inside a plastic case with a clear hinged lid. The case has a cable and would be plugged in to heat up the rollers. Heat resistant plastics allowed for safer electrical hair styling, bringing new styling technologies out of the salon into the home. Imagine wrapping your hair around the heated, spiky rollers. How would they feel against your scalp?

Continue to move clockwise around the room. The wooden ledge will restart on the right-hand wall of the gallery, guiding you through the rest of the exhibition to the exit.