Preserving Material Culture by Enhancing the University of Delaware Historic Costume and Textiles Collection

FAIN: PG-233783-16

University of Delaware (Newark, DE 19711-3651)
Belinda T. Orzada (Project Director: May 2015 to March 2018)

The rehousing of over 900 shoes, hats, and flat textiles from the Historic Costumes and Textiles Collection representing American and Western European fashion history from the 1800s to the present, as well as traditional garments from India, China, and Myanmar.  The collection is used in exhibitions, scholarly research, and course design in fashion history and to illustrate cultural changes in dress over time. The project would also involve the installation of programmable light-switch timers in exhibition spaces to reduce light exposure for the sensitive textiles in the collection.

This project focuses on activities to significantly enhance artifact preservation, and the storage and exhibition areas of the Collection. First, additional storage furniture is needed to house flat textiles, hats and shoes in a new storage area dedicated to the Collection. Second, archival resources will be obtained for proper preservation and storage of footwear and headwear artifacts and flat textiles. These include polyethylene foam to line shelves, Abaca tissue paper and polyester batting to support the shape of the shoes and hats, and archival quality corrugated board to create mounts to hold hats above the shelf. Third, to limit exposure to fluorescent lighting in the exhibition cases, programmable wall light-switch timers will be installed.