Dressed For Best: conserving couture, restoring its Worth
Charles Frederick Worth was the Lincolnshire designer who dominated the Paris fashion scene in the latter part of the nineteenth century, otherwise known as the ‘father of haute couture’. [1] It…
Hats off to Hats (Part 4)
Conservation of Hats Through an Intern’s Eyes by Emma Hartikka Tricky Treatments Unfolding The half way mark of my internship is now passed. I have already learned a lot about…
Hats off to Hats (Part 3)
Conservation of Hats Through an Intern’s Eyes by Emma Hartikka Whodunnit – Labels as Clues to the Past When working with historical objects, you quickly become interested in the aspects…
Lumps, Bumps and Lots of Layers!
The Westminster Abbey Funeral Effigies Layers! One of the most fascinating but problematic things about redressing the effigies were the multiple layers of clothing (some wearing as many as 18…
Hats off to Hats (Part 2)
Conservation of Hats Through an Intern’s Eyes Challenges of Intern Life and Old Hats The first month with the hats has been full of learning and important revelations for me….
Hats off to Hats (Part 1)
Conservation of Hats Through an Intern’s Eyes The Beginning Twenty-one old, gorgeous hats, all at once within your reach. Not to wear, though, but to preserve. Torment or a treat?…
2017- Dust and Teamwork
The main themes of this last busy year seem to have been dust and BIG, complex, dirty textiles. Oh and scaffolding. We bought our own scaffold tower this year and…
The Scotney Queen of Hearts
For its winter exhibition ‘Inside the Collection’ Scotney Castle celebrates ten years of public access by delving into its own stores for inspiration. This card-adorned fancy dress costume was recently…
Lambrequin at Leeds Castle
“The word of the day is lambrequin”, was one of the comments on our Facebook page in response to a posting about the conservation of the Leeds Castle Drawing Room…
Falling to Dust
Part two – April 2017 Once the initial condition survey of the colours was completed, Heather Newton Head of Conservation at Canterbury Cathedral came to the studio to discuss and…
A Multi- Coloured Mission – Keeping the Canterbury Colours in Flight
Part one – January 2017 Shortly before Christmas we got an extra special delivery to the Brighton studio; a collection of 39 Canterbury Cathedral colours, predominantly from The East Kent…
From colourful Caffoy (again) to Canterbury colours- 2016 A year ‘In Progress’
After a great response to our end of 2015 newsletter, From Caffoys to Cowboys, we’ve decided to make it a yearly tradition and round off what has been a hectic year