Five Dresses, Five Voices Ask anyone who works with a museum, historical society or other costume collection what the most abundant type of clothing is in their storage room, and the answer will probably be women’s dresses. We all understand that clothing has a unique ability to tell stories about individuals, as well as the technological, economic, and cultural developments of a brief moment in time. Dresses can be amazing ceremonial costumes made from luxury fabrics and containing countless hours of hand work, which are coveted, unchanged, for generations within the same family. They can also bear evidence of thrifty tailoring and redesigning, due to the inherent value of their raw materials, making dating nearly impossible. The following set of essays by MTS staff and interns will introduce you to five dresses that received treatment at MTS in the past 18 months, and the five very different reasons why they are important to preserve.
Fig. 5. Opposite. Detail of the Fairbanks dress after conservation.
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