THE PROBLEMS OF RECONSTRUCTING HISTORIC

WITH REFERENCE TO T H E LINCOLN MANTUA BASED ON A LECTURE GIVEN AT THE COLLECTION, LINCOLN

• in attitudes towards conservation of the scarcer become the extant examples to

costume and what it should try to do, have represent an age, and these are mostly those

changed over the last half century, with a span clothes worn by the richer members of the

ranging from full scale conservation and, where population. The clothes of the working classes are

evidence allows, a return to the original shape, to even more rare, since they were worn to rags and

the maintenance of ‘social history’, that is the thrown away, so that knowledge of an earlier period

garment in its latest phase. The aims of conservation is often based on portraits, plates, published

and what information we are trying to pass on have patterns, written descriptions, and those portions of

to be carefully considered in this context, which a garment that may have survived. The Courtauld

may be affected by the context of the collection in Institute used to run a degree course on the history

which the object finally rests. A museum of social of costume through portraiture; although there is

history has different aims from the museum of the one great disadvantage in having to rely so much

history of decorative arts. One criterion in the on pictorial illustrations….. no-one has their portrait

decision is the safety of the original fabric and painted with their back to us. In this country by the

whether or not it is under stress from later additions. time we have got back to the middle of the 17th

Another is the information about the techniques of century actual, whole garments are rare indeed,

dressmaking or fashion that can be gained by and those are mostly of the fancier male kind,

deeper investigation. perhaps because they were more difficult to alter

• In the nature of things the further back in time we go than the female equivalents. VERY FEW INDEED, FROM ANY SOURCE OR ERA, HAVE EXISTED AND ESCAPED CHANGE OR REPAIR OF ONE SORT OR ANOTHER OVER THE YEARS, AND EVEN THE QUITE RECENT PAST. 2

A beaded made for Marylin Monroe had strips of acetate material and a zip fastener added very crudely to enlarge it to be worn by Shelley Winters, a lady of rather different proportions, but fortunately easily reversed.

Then there was a waistcoat made for a man around 1800, but it was refashioned in a very professional way as a riding waistcoat for a woman, in the 1860s or 70s judging by the hour-glass shape. There was no question but to accept it and mount it as it was, as an example of recycling, probably within the family to which it still belongs. • A wedding dress first saw light of day in the1860s as a but was refashioned in the age of Worth in the 1890’s and yet again in 1960 when the was turned back to front. In trying to produce a displayable object some compromise was necessary and, while it was a very elegant garment it can never be said to fully represent any particular age. A WEDDING DRESS, CIRCA 1918, ALTERED FOR DAY WEAR.

On the strictly social document side of the argument it is remarkably difficult to conserve something in a satisfactory way if it has been crudely chopped about and stitched by a well- meaning amateur.

A wedding dress of about 1918 had been altered to make it easier to wear for other occasions. It consisted of a satin underdress with a chiffon over-dress and beaded belt that was part of the very complicated construction which allowed a one piece garment which wrapped over to the left side to be actually worn. The dress had been separated at the waist to allow the bodice to be shortened onto its own lining, and crude repairs made to the beads in a way that was tearing the chiffon apart. The chiffon had also been hacked about at the sides of the to remove the .

The dress on arrival, dirty and drooping. During conservation work it was possible to reconstruct the bodice and skirt to their proper length and relationship and give the beads support but nothing could be done about the missing chiffon, even though the original shape could be traced and deduced from what was left. From a fashion point of view the garment remained relevant for the 1920s, but as a social document it now carries a mixed message but at least it will survive a bit longer.

An alteration such as this last example is much more acceptable if it has been made within the wearable lifetime of the garment, following a change of use, shape or, indeed, the shape of the owner. Within such a time span the change remains a fashion statement and thus has relevance in the history of costume. A social activity that brought about many drastic or destructive changes made for more frivolous reasons was the 19th and early 20th century love of fancy dress balls and dressing up for amateur theatricals and playing charades. The dressing up box was a common feature in many houses and many a beautiful garment has been destroyed in the pursuit of such games. THE EFFECTS OF TIME AND USE ON FABRICS

Not that we can keep everything and I am a strong believer in allowing the filter of history to sift out the truly valuable but the action of the environment, exposure on display in the wrong kind of conditions, and the simple action of time on organic materials have a destructive action on textile objects anyway, so that fabrics become faded and brittle from exposure to light and suffer fibre loss and cracking of folds and creases. ALTERATIONS TO A 1760 AND TO ENLARGE THEM BUT RESIZED DURING CONSERVATION

The alterations had included opening the seam of the to use what was a generous turning, inserting an extra strip into the shoulder and armhole to increase the size of the bust, and another in centre back, underneath the flying sack, which has a rather touching little repair. It was all done in its own time and quite well, but the evidence was so clear, and the resulting shape of putting it back to its original size so elegant, I Access to the reverse personally think it was justifiable, although the was absolutely social document school of thought would necessary in order to probably prefer to leave it as it was. However, introduce a support. there was another factor in this intervention, of The choice between saving the fabric, which was being attacked by preserving an altered the pigments in the paint, particularly the green structure or the fabric which derives from copper. was clear.

THE PETTICOAT OF THE CHINESE PAINTED SILK DRESS CIRCA 1760

Having said that, during the 18th century, when the quantity of fabric used in one garment was anything up to 20 metres or more it was common practice to achieve the desired shape much more by pleating and darting than by cutting, so that when the inevitable shift in fashion occurred there was room for manoeuvre, the original pleats and folds being undone and re-set. The petticoat had been refashioned at the same time as the bodice, to make the waistline larger. The whole turn line and pleating pattern had been changed but fortunately the original line and even stitch holes were very clear. To trace such a change one looks for a continuous turn line with inverted fold marks that match each side of the line. Returning this petticoat to match the gown was comparatively easy. THE LINCOLN MANTUA

When in doubt one clue to the origin and original shape of a costume lies in the date of the design of the fabric. The date of the design of the fabric of the Lincoln Mantua has been pin- pointed by the late Natalie Rothstein of the Victoria and Albert Museum to 1735. It was woven in Spitalfields, an area of London where the Huguenot weavers driven out of France settled and set up their looms. For a hundred years or more it was the source of many superb silks such as this one, which has a black back ground diapered with a white pattern representing lace, with flowers, tulips and roses, brocaded on in floss silks. Panel from the petticoat showing how the repeat joins to the next width

Reverse of fabric To achieve a good black dye required the use of iron and gall in the mordant, and iron has a destructive effect in the first place. Then, black absorbs all the energy of light, which is why we perceive it as black, tending to alter the morphology of fibres for the worse, both factors when added to the aftermath of human contact, having a fairly disastrous effect on the Lincoln Mantua. The black ground weave was a source of destruction from the first moment the cloth came into existence, explaining the rarity of extant examples of this class of design..

Fabric destroyed by the action of iron on fabric encouraged by sweat

7 Changing outlines of the same basic idea

Gradually changing outlines of a mantua from the end of the 17th and during the 1st half of the 18th century.

1740 1730 1745

The petticoat and under-lying hoop of these garments varied in width from manageable in 1720 to the ridiculously wide in 1745 and could be made up of anything between 5 to 8 loom widths, a width usually being about 52cm if English in origin and perhaps 54-56 cm if French. Such fashions were a fixture at court for many years after the rest of the world had moved on. In fact, it was not until 1820 that ladies were released from the necessity of wearing a hoop at court, although the compromise with more current fashion produced some laughable examples. A wide hoop and the empire line don’t exactly mix. We only have a few pictures and fashion drawings of these but I did once come across a bedspread that had been made out of one.

18000 The gown of the mantua had an open fronted bodice, lined with linen and edged with what were called robings, strips of fabric stitched in reverse to the front edges, turned back and pleated to run from the neckline at the back, over the shoulders and down to the waist. It was a fashion that extended over many decades. The space in the middle was filled by a pinned to the becoming part of the construction in 1760.

The were elbow length and finished with a deep cuff and lace ruffles.

The skirt of the gown had a more or less triangular train which was doubled up and kept out of the way at the sides by cord loops which came from inside, stitched on the main seams of the train and hitched over buttons on the outside, at various places on a seam or on the level of the waist at centre back, forming a small cuff that sat on the , with great decorative effect. This arrangement led to the fabric being reversed where necessary, so that the right side was always visible. The variations on the theme were considerable. In this example of how it worked it is necessary to think of the areas of black as being the reverse of the fabric except on the cuff where it represents missing fabric.

X An early trial of dressing the train using the blue and silver dress of 1720 as model, with the buttons set out on the seams did not look right. Re-reading the evidence of severe damage on the centre waist the buttons were moved with a much more satisfactory result, as the pattern ran horizontally, (see slide 15) in contrast to the vertical use of the pattern in the petticoat. The Construction of the lincoln mantua

At the beginning of conservation of the Lincoln Mantua there was a gown with a bodice but no lining to keep it together, elbow length sleeves and a triangular train made up of one g long loom width piece a flanked by cut pieces of diminishing j length, such as piece c ,seamed together and set at an angle to h e the main length, although the seams had been taken apart. d x The fabric was in a state of collapse, with some pieces missing entirely, such as a section of the left side of the train and the b opposite number to piece d, labelled as piece g on the right f side. X marks the spot where one remaining original cord still existed. The spread out view of the gown shows the front of the bodice c a as if it was being worn, with the train at full length displaying the right side of the fabric suspended from the base of the extended back of the bodice piece h, of which the inside can be seen. Viewed from behind the figure, when the bodice was actually worn, only the reverse side of the train would be seen until it was folded up at the start of dressing. We never got a shot of the train spread out from the other side as it was so fragile it was difficult to move around. I’m afraid you will have to use your imagination here. Piece d is joined along the top edge to piece b, facing in the same direction, the short edge joined to the front of the bodice piece j so that the outside x remains visible as it is turned to the back of the figure. g

a There was a petticoat of six loom widths with the back seam open, evidence that another panel of a different material had once been inserted, and signs that, although they were still in their right order their vertical relationship had been altered.

There were also and three separate pieces which didn’t seem to belong anywhere, although one looked as though it might have once been pleated up as part of a cuff. I much regretted choosing to use black fabric for this purpose since it has proved visually confusing, with the black of the support taffeta; a lighter colour would have been better, but it was too late when it struck me. . g d In any intervention of this kind it‘s important to be able to recognize certain conventions in the way these garments were made. They were always made directly on the body of the client, or on a figure, like dressmakers dummies of our own day, made to size. A linen bodice was first made to fit closely, the seams facing outwards so they were easy to adjust; indeed, all the conventions were designed to make it easy to fit a garment to any shape of figure. The front section was darted to fit the bust and bring the straight edge to lie over the shoulders to join the neckline on the back. This pattern from 1735 is very similar to that of the Lincoln Mantua, except for the shape of the train.

Page from “The Cut of Women’s clothes by Norah Waugh Details of the construction of the lincoln bodice

The fronts of the bodice were fitted onto this lining with the side seams a little towards the back. The back was made with two widths of fabric cut to fit at the side seam and shaped in the centre by pleating extending well below the waistline, a shape that was known as the English back. The French were more inclined to the sack back, which was worn in England but became generally popular later on; like the 1760s dress. The side seam was made by turning in the cut edge of the front piece onto the back and top stitching it through to the lining. The top of the pleats was faced with a strip of fabric which was mitred to the robing that came over the shoulder. The Lincoln mantua diverges from this formula as the two back panels are cut to shape at the sides and meet and overlap in the centre while the pleats on the outside are made in a separate piece to be applied over the top of this join. I think this was to take advantage of the striking pattern. The sleeves

The sleeves, set deeply into the back were also lined with linen and set into the armhole underneath the arm in the ordinary way but the top was brought up and pleated or gathered onto the shoulder to be stitched on the outside, the stitches hidden beneath the fold of the robing. The tops of the sleeves of the mantua had been reshaped into a curve which had to be rebuilt to the original flat across the top before the right set could be achieved. The example on the right is of the same period but in much better condition For the petticoat the standard way of pleating up the fabric into a waist band was to slash the centre front panel down about 7 or 8 cm tapering to a narrow turn, carrying on to the centre back panels which were also turned down at an angle, before starting to pleat. Depending on the arrangement of the panels it might be in the centre of a loom width, as here, or placed in a seam. In the painted silk dress the centre slash was in the centre of loom width but had been stitched up when the dress was altered. In the Lincoln Mantua a seam was used instead, again, I think, because of the strong line made by the pattern. A pocket slit was provided in one of the side panels so that the wearer could get to the separate pocket pinned onto the hoop

To start with a flat box pleat was made across the front and pleating continued towards the back on each side until the pocket slit was reached, when they went into reverse to the placket opening centre back. The pleats were over-stitched first and then covered with a band of ribbon or tape

The pocket slit was neatly turned and hemmed. The pocket itself was pinned to the hoop beneath. Diagram of the petticoat (see slide 24 for text) Diagram of petticoat. Looking at the diagram of the mantua petticoat pieces U,V,Y and Z, had strips of black ribbed silk joined with very neat stitching to the top cut edge of the section, although the original turn line can be seen about 15mm below it. These extensions were pleated up following the original line of pleats but with some extras and in all probability the edges had been stitched together over a wide hoop, similar to the red dress in slide 8, creating a strip of plain black across the top of the petticoat. On the open selvages of the pieces U and Z there were traces of a totally different fabric, blue and white check wool, itself extended to the length of the panel plus the black taffeta extension with white wool of which only a fragment remained. All the seams had been shifted in relationship to its neighbour, upsetting the way the pattern should read. The original stitching had acted like a perforation line so that the new line of hand stitching was longer and in places moved in from the first line. Another line was added of very tight chain stitch which could only have been done by a machine in the 19th century when sewing machines were being developed..

All the evidence, taken together, pointed to a change from a narrow hoop, fashionable for the 1730s, to a much wider shape for the mid 1740s. There had been subsequent repairs and interference, but such interference did not make a fundamental difference to this situation. An initial idea of conserving the black silk strips had to be abandoned and they were removed. There was insufficient evidence of how they had been used to justify the time it would take just in order to turn it back inside to use the original line of pleats because our problem was going to be how to make a convincing compromise between the two and to find the shape of the person and hoop that once lay beneath the costume. Rejected first Attempt with the petticoat

Our first attempt with the petticoat followed the evidence for a wide hoop and two side plackets instead of one centre back., but the result was grotesque and quickly abandoned and we back tracked to start again on the assumption that the pannier was narrower, more like the 1730 outline and the date of the weaving of the fabric. WORKING TO FIND THE SHAPE OF THE HOOP AND PETTICOAT 17 17

The second attempt used a narrow hoop. The pleats across the front were re-set according to evidence, which opened them up slightly.

The he m line was decided by the evidence of turn lines combined with the length of the doubled up train. WORKING TO FIND THE SHAPE OF THE HOOP AND PETTICOAT 17 17

The second attempt used a narrow hoop. The pleats across the front were re-set according to evidence, which opened them up slightly.

The he m line was decided by the evidence of turn lines combined with the length of the doubled up train. Conserving the fabric

The other side of the work was to strengthen and support the fabric itself, and make good the missing parts once we had found what shape they should be. The system used was to back the pieces first with black Stablitex, a fairly transparent polyester fabric that could be used with a thermo-plastic adhesive to give control of the fragmented areas and strengthen the rest before adding a second layer of black, polyester taffeta to fill in the missing areas visually and provide a firm basis for the extensive stitching that followed.

After realigning the pattern repeats the fold lines across the top also lined up more accurately. It had the unavoidable disadvantage of covering the reverse of the fabric and hiding the evidence it carried but without it there was no way of providing enough strength to hold the necessary stitching. Stages in creating the torso and corset The processes of conservation and discovery ran alongside the creation of the display dummy, and the corset and hoop that would be the final support for both display and storage.

The raw dummy, made from fibreglass, was lengthened from nape to waist by the insertion of the extra ring provided, but the test of the body was built up with polyester wadding held tightly in place by ‘bandages’ cut on the cross. A corset was made to a 1735 pattern that laced back and front for maximum adjustment. A shift to which lace would be stitched was also added, together with a stiffened stomacher. STAGES OF FITTING THE BODICE Lace from Burghley House

23 Final dressing 24