Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[Ann Frisina] Hello and welcome to the Textile Conservation Lab of
the Minnesota Historical Society. My name is Ann Frisina and
I'm the Textile Conservator. This is the third podcast in
our series and it's all about storing costumes in boxes.
Now, before we get started I want to have a very quick
note about terminology. There are many different
ways to describe costumes: clothing, garments, regalia.
There are many different terms, however, in the museum world we
commonly refer to them as costumes. And that's how I'll be referring
to everything today.
Boxes are a great way to store your textiles.
And in this case, what I love about boxes is that you can stack them
fairly high on your shelf and use every available inch of space.
Also, because the box is closed it locks out dirt and light, and also
protects against insect infestation. Finally, boxes are the only
way to store costumes which are too fragile to be hung.
And this is a very good example of something that
is too fragile to be hung. As you can see here, there are
tears up around the shoulder area where it was hanging.
And the silk has just gotten to a point where it's just
too fragile and cannot withstand that kind of weight.
So this is something that is suitable for box storage.
Now boxes as we'd discussed earlier come in paper as well
as in plastic coroplast. However, we're going to be using
an acid-free box today to work with. And here I have a box that is
partially set up. The other items you're going to need
beside the box itself is a muslin sling or an acid-free
paper sling, as well as tissue to stuff your garment with.
Now the sling is extremely important and basically this is
just a piece of washed muslin. And it acts as a way to get items
in and out of your box easily and as you can see here I have several
items packed in here. I have this red dress and then I have this
full Christening outfit with the slip and the dress and the coat.
And I have two pairs of shoes neatly wrapped here.
And what I like about this process of using the sling is that I can
actually pick everything up at once and pull it out and easily look and
see what all the layers are that are inside. Let me move this for a minute.
And you can see I can see all the items here as well as
there is only one piece here. Now when you're beginning to
choose a box for storage, you have to make sure it's going to fit
on your shelf and also fit the textiles that are going into it.
And I'm just going to fold this back up here and put it back into our box.
The other thing about boxes is that sometimes they come with
plastic windows on the top and I don't recommend any kind of
plastic film window on the top. I think it's especially prevalent
within the wedding community. And what happens is that the
plastic film can be punctured and if it's punctured then pest,
light, and dirt can get into your box and so it's no longer a secured
environment for your textile.
Now what I'd like to do is show you how to actually pat out a costume
to place it into a box for storage. Now before we even touch the costume
itself, you must always be sure to check to make sure that you have no
jewelry on because the jewelry can snag a piece of lace or a part of
the costume. And your hands must be thoroughly washed and dried prior
to any kind of handling because you don't want to transfer dirt and oils
to the piece. Now I'm going to gently slide this over here. We have a 19th
century bodice here. And prior to doing anything I want to examine
the costume to make sure it's strong enough to be handled. And then I'm
going to check out all the pieces, make sure nothing is falling apart.
And it seems like we're all good. This is a fairly strong bodice.
Now it's a lovely open front piece which makes it easier so I can
just open it up to look inside. Kind of display it open there.
Now, whenever we're patting out a garment, our overall goal is
to support it along fold lines to prevent them from fossilizing
into knife-edge creases. And that is the whole goal
of stuffing out a garment. It's very easy for these to become
strong creases and as the fabric ages, it will fracture at a later date.
So I stuffed it out with acid-free tissue and acid-free tissue is
simply scrunched up like this. It's not any hard or difficult process.
You just kind of scrunch it up so that it's kind of accordion pleated
and a little fluffy in the middle. And then you want to gently,
and you've already examined everything so it's safe, put the
tissue down into the sleeves. And any extra tissue I always
up put along the shoulder line. The interesting thing about
19th century garments in particular that the sleeves is
almost always sculpted so it really does help to stuff them out.
And now I'm going to do the other arm. And this one I'm going to
pull it down in the inside and again up by the shoulder.
So the shoulders and the sleeves of this costume are now supported.
I'm going to take one more final piece of acid-free tissue
and I'm going to double-dip here and do both sides.
I'm going to put it up on this side and then I'm going to fold
it up and put it on the other side so that both side folds are
thoroughly padded which prevents any kind of creasing from going on.
One more thing about costumes. It is not uncommon for them to have
embellishments or closures that will snag and tear a piece of lace
or even a fragile piece of fabric. In this case we have these hooks
and eyes and so another form of embellishment could be sequins,
beads, anything like that. So, whenever you have something that
could potentially snag another piece of the costume, you actually want to
line it with the tissue paper because in that way there is nothing for it
to snag on except the tissue paper. Be sure to align any kind of
embellishments which is in this case are these little tassels
and then I'm going to fold this piece of paper over.
Now that everything's pretty much lined up and carefully supported
I'm going to gently bring the arms in to see exactly how small I can
make this because I have to fit it into this box and I'm a little bit
big so I want to bring this one over. I'm going to overlay the bodice
a little bit, make it a little smaller there without creasing
or distorting the actual textile. And now I can bring this in.
And this and you can see, once these things are padded, they
really do hold themselves. Finally, whenever you're folding
another costume in a box with several other costumes, I always
recommend that you put a piece of acid-free tissue underneath
it to separate one from the other and a good example of this is in
this box I have an entire Baptism costume as I show you here all the
pieces together so if I just want to pull that one piece out, I can
just pick up that acid-free paper and move it on out and not have
to disturb everything in the box. And in this case we're going
to put the little shoes up on top and now we're going to use
my acid-free tissue to sling and place it in the box.
Now it's a little big so I'm going to actually advance the sleeves over
some and it's a little overstuffed so I'm going to just flatten it
without crunching it into a crease. Make sure everything is aligned.
And I have to advance it down a little bit.
Whenever you're putting something in a box, it always takes a little bit of
adjustment prior to actually being done. I'm just going to make sure that
none of the cuffs are folded over onto themselves, everything is
covered up nice and neat here. And now, I'm ready to actually
close this box up and I'd just like to advance this over and
it's ready for storage. Another issue when you're storing
larger 19th century costumes like this very long 1890's dress is that
sometimes even the biggest box is not large enough to hold the whole
costume and so you have to fold them at the waist or at the train.
This piece has a fairly sizable train on it.
However, because the skirt is so thick with this very, very
heavy velvet, it's very difficult to fold it down there where we
have all this extra material. So instead, with this 19th
century garment and it's already padded out nicely,
I'm going to fold it at the waistline. And we're kind of go up and go over.
And then I'm going to move the whole piece down so that it
actually fits within the box. Now that I've done this, I will
have a little extra space. So, what I do with that extra space
is that I fill it up with acid-free tissue prior to putting it away
because once you're handling this, you can tip the box and it can easily
slide to one side so you don't want to have any movement in your box once
it's been closed up and is being carried over for storage on a shelf.
Properly storing costumes in boxes is a time-consuming process, but
it's a great way to protect them for the long-term. Please consult
the Minnesota Historical Society website for information on where
to purchase supplies and in our next podcast we'll be reviewing
how to store flat textiles in boxes.