4360 Kalama Court
Cincinnati, OH, 45236
(406) 438-3300
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This blue and grey printed silk ensemble was treated for widespread weakness and areas of loss. It had become papery and fragile. Adhesive patches and stitching were used to repair the damage enough that it can be displayed again.
The skirt waistband was reassembled with a custom-dyed silk edge, stable enough to support the skirt on display.
A custom-dyed silk habutai patch is used to infill the areas of loss and to support the weak and damaged area.
Both sleeves had splitting with loss, especially along the fold lines where they had been folded flat for many years.
The badly disintegrated waistband had to be painstakingly reassembled using adhesive support fabric and stitching to close extensive splitting and support the weakened, weight-bearing area.
The heated spatula is used to reactivate adhesive support while tweezers help realign loose threads and edges as support is applied.
Glass weights were used to help correct creasing and distortion in the skirt. Here, they are laid along crushed seam allowances from the inside.
The pleats along the bottom edge had to be temporarily taken apart in order to repair splits along the folded edge. Adhesive support applied to the reverse held the edges together. Laid thread couching was added to the face to prevent lifting edges after the pleats were refolded and stitched in their original positions.
This ensemble was in relatively good condition, except the overskirt was missing. Only fragments caught in the seams were left of the chenille textured skirt that would have matched the textured bodice and covered the cotton muslin seen on the sides in the "before treatment" picture. OTC created a pattern of the missing overskirt (based on the underskirt) and prepared custom dyed-to-match silk satin to approximate the shade of the lost material. As an additional option for display, a second overskirt was prepared of silk digitally printed with a repeating photograph of the chenille texture fabric from the bodice. The second overskirt can be fitted over the conserved skirt, another way of visually simulating the lost textured overskirt.
This ensemble of cream silk satin damask and turquoise silk chiffon center panels with ornate, beaded metal braid trim and silk taffeta lining was in poor condition in ways that might not be immediately obvious in the “before treatment” pictures. Like many women’s clothes of this era, the bodice and skirt rely on the internal structures of the garments to give them their correct shape, including linings, boning, padding, and hidden closures. For the bodice, the lining was badly deteriorated and could not achieve the correct shape or even close correctly. Perspiration damage also destroyed the underarm area all the way through the satin shell. The collar stand was completely lost. For the skirt , loss around the lining waistband threatened to cause what remained of the lining to detach and fall away completely. There were splits in the shell fabric and the satin modesty fabric (behind the pleated silk chiffon panels) was virtually shredded.
This detail shot shows the interior of the skirt where the lining has been stabilized inside a “sandwich” of nylon net which holds the fragments of what survives in position and bridges what is lost with the net. After the lining sandwich had been assembled, it was reattached to the original waistband.
This detail of the skirt waistband before treatment (and inside out, here) shows how the loss of the lining caused what remained to hang precariously from a few points. The damaged lining also created an unsightly bulge where the damaged edge had bunched up and was even visible behind the silk chiffon panel, since the satin “modesty” backing has also pulled away completely.
The collar stand (the fabric that stands straight up around the neck) was completely lost, leaving only a few fabric fragments stuck to the back of the beaded metal braid trim. The height and length of the collar stand was suggested by the trim, which was still tacked to the bodice at a few points. A new stand was created using dyed-to-match silk satin. Here, fitting the trim to the stand.
This flat shot of the bodice before treatment gives some sense of the lost collar, the damaged underarms, and the unstable closure.
This ensemble includes the bodice, overskirt, and underskirt with cotton lace panels and tiny, silver sequins. The silk faille is patterned in damask with a graceful bow that has been highlighted in key locations with sequins. It is also a victim of “inherent vice”: condition problems that are caused by the material and processes used to make it. The shell fabric is water-marked. Water marking on silk is created with heat and pressure, applied with a hot roller . But this silk suffer long, regular lines of weakness that became splits over time. These lines are almost certainly where the ends of the water marking roller cut into the silk as it was pressed into the fabric. Another inherent vice is the silver sequins, which are darkened by tarnish that cannot be safely removed and also weakened the cotton threads used to attach them to the dress.
With so many sequins detached (and painstakingly collected by conscientious caretakers over the years), the locations for their reattachment had to be prioritized for where their absence was most disturbing. One location chosen for “re-sequining” was the bodice cuff edges. The silver sequins left “shadows” on their former locations, so it was easy to see where sequins ought to be.
The back of the bodice suffered from split at the center back seam.
