The various clothing artifacts in the Bertha Honoré Palmer exhibition range from winter coats to nightgowns and day suits to opulent evening wear and court presentation gowns. Some of the pieces are in absolute mint condition; others are the most fragile pieces I have ever worked with. Making these clothes presentable and sturdy enough for exhibit required nearly $20,000 dollars in conservation costs and almost three months of work from three different specialists—and that was just a small section of our large collection of Mrs. Palmer’s wardrobe.

While physical condition can be a limiting factor in selecting items for display, digital media allows us to easily share some items that didn’t make it into the exhibition.

The first item is an evening gown worn for the Paris Exposition of 1900. It was made by Worth (as was most of Mrs. Palmer’s wardrobe for the Expo) and consists of a day bodice (not shown), evening bodice, and skirt made of silk taffeta, lace, chiffon, and net, along with silk thread and ribbon embroidery, silver lace and silver lame. It is a stunning piece! The photo was taken in 1973 and shows the ensemble in stable condition. Since then, the sheer net in the skirt has started to disintegrate.  If you look at the right side of the ensemble, just about five inches below the fingertips of the right hand, there is a seam where the sheer net connects to the white silk taffeta. This is the most fragile area of the gown since the taffeta is simply pulling away from the net because of the weight of the skirt.

The second item is a court presentation gown from the early 1890s. It is one of our most severe cases of disrepair and has never been properly dressed on a mannequin and photographed.  The above image shows the discoloration in the velvet. The areas in the velvet that have turned to a light brown color are very brittle and will simply crumble in your fingertips if not handled properly. The image below shows an area of loss in the light silk crepe of the skirt. Not only are there large holes throughout the skirt, the sequin embroidery is missing in several areas. Every time we find a sequin that has fallen off the gown, we add it to a small zip-lock bag so that we can sew these back on  in the future. Naturally, we want to preserve as much of the original gown as possible.

> Learn more about Bertha Honoré Palmer

Tags: Bertha Honoré Palmer, Conservation, Costume and Textile, Tim Long

This entry was posted on Friday, August 21st, 2009 at 4:36 pm and is filed under Collections, Exhibitions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.