Conserving the collection

A piece by Sarah Howard, Conservator.

During the Spring and Summer of 2020 before and during the first Covid-19 lockdown, I had the pleasure of conserving several items of dress in preparation for their display in the redeveloped Fashion Gallery at The Salisbury Museum. As a professional trained textile conservator with many years’ experience of working with museum fashion collections, I was delighted to be asked to be part of this project.

Delaying the decay

Dress and textiles are amongst some of the most vulnerable and fragile items in a museum collection. Textiles can be affected by many different factors such as over exposure to light and changing temperature and humidity levels and they can become weak and unstable over time. A garment’s construction, its original use, and subsequent storage and display can also take their toll.  

Items of dress are made to survive long enough for the wearer to use and enjoy them and are not intended to last centuries. Museums take great care of their fashion collections to stop the march of time and to make sure the garments survive a lot longer than originally intended.

Museums protect their collections and delay the decay of objects by a process called conservation. Conservation activities help to preserve collections for present and future generations to enjoy. For fashion collections this means physically supporting garments and repairing past damage, as well as providing a safe environment in the museum for them to be stored and displayed.

Conservation in action

Before the new Fashion Gallery was set up, the condition of the items to be displayed was checked to make sure the garments would be strong enough to withstand being exhibited. Although appearing relatively intact, textile fibres can be fragile and prone to splitting if not supported, and any tears and damage hidden by folds, pleats or a fabric pattern can become worse through handling and display. 

1800s printed cotton dress

Most garments found in museum collections reflect the fashions of their day. Styles that seem odd to us in the present were often highly desirable when made and first worn and they can indicate the social values, traditions, and preferences of their time.

A garment that illustrates this is the printed cotton dress in the Fashion Gallery (see photographs below). It dates to the early 1830s and its cut, construction, and fabric reflect the fashionable tastes of the time it was made and worn.  Two of the stand out features of the dress are the flamboyant sleeves and the wide skirt with lots of fabric gathered into the narrow waist.  

The weight of fashion

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the construction of the sleeves has caused problems at the top of the shoulders of the dress where their weight and size have strained the fabric at this vulnerable point. Past handling and possible subsequent wear of the dress have also put pressure on the delicate and fine cotton fabric and several small splits have resulted.  

Pits of despair

A common type of damage found in museum costume collections affects the underarms of garments. Staining can occur due to perspiration of the original or subsequent wearer, and this can cause fibres to rot and splits and fabric loss to occur. The construction of a garment can also contribute to underarm damage where the fabric is put under 

Remedies and repairs

In order to make the dress safe for display, conservation work was needed to support and stabilised the damage.  Patches of new cotton fabric colour matched to the original fabric of the dress were placed behind areas of damage at the shoulders and underarms and the original fabric sewn to it using a fine polyester thread and laid couching stitches worked with a fine curved needle. The new cotton fabric patches act as an anchor for support stitching and provide additional strength to the weakened original fabric. The work was particularly satisfying as the printed design of the fabric is once more possible to see where it was affected by the damage – see the below photograph.

1879 yellow wedding dress

Materials self destructing

Museum fashion collections can contain items that self destruct over time. Materials become unstable and break down as they age, some more quickly than others. This deterioration can be made worse after original wear by the salts and acids present on our skin.  

The 1879 yellow wedding dress is a wonderful example of a high fashion garment of its time and is in good condition with the yellow silk still as soft and supple as when it was first worn. However, a closer look at the white silk net trim at the edges of the sleeves and around the neck reveals a material that is in poor condition.  The net has lost its shape and the structure has become brittle and collapsed. The net is so fragile in several places that it has disintegrated and is missing most notably at the right side of the neck.  The reason for this damage is the net fabric itself. A finish would have been applied to make the net rigid and over time this has reacted badly with the silk fibres and caused them to become brittle and discoloured. The result is lots of tiny breaks in the net structure something that cannot be prevented.

Remedies and repairs

In order to make sure that the net is protected and doesn’t disintegrate any further when the dress is placed on a mannequin for display, it was “sandwiched” between two layers of new net fabric and stitched in place inside using a fine polyester thread.  The conservation treatment successfully provided the stability needed for the net and meant that further damage wouldn’t occur during display.   

With the purchase of new mannequins and bespoke padding, the items are now safely displayed for the continued enjoyment of museum visitors.