AIC's 53rd Annual Meeting

A wedding ensemble of bodice, skirt, and veil, dated to 1840 in the collection of a regional museum was partially cleaned and entirely conserved. It had been worn at least twice, most recently by a descendant of the original owner in 1941, 101 years after it was made. The top layer of both bodice and skirt were of silk gauze, which was badly soiled on the skirt and fractured and torn on both pieces. Both featured a second robust layer of heavy silk satin, and the bodice had a further sturdy lining of plain-weave linen. Accessibility of the gauze layer for treatment was made difficult by its incorporation into cartridge pleats at the skirt waistband, and into all construction seaming of the bodice. Conservation involved partial disassembly of the skirt for wet cleaning and extensive underlays or overlays of silk crepeline on both pieces. A variety of seam and edge treatments were employed, including machine and hand stitching, with and without the addition of adhesive.