Altered States: Authenticity in Fashion Conservation
Date
2024-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
An eye-catching blue sequined dress within the University of Delaware
Fashion and Textile collection was a primary candidate for display in an upcoming
1920s Fashion exhibition. However, an irregularly constructed blue slip stitched into
the ornamented black net exterior layer seemed to be a later addition to this historic
garment. Art conservation, the field of preservation of material culture, focuses on
stabilizing the present condition of an object, so would a highly interventive treatment
involving the removal of this blue slip fall within conservation ethics? Was the dress a
better example of 1920’s fashion with or without the blue slip, and how would this
authenticity be determined? Fashion as an art form that is specific for its association
with a particular period produces historical objects that must be aesthetically legible.
Fashion conservation, a field of conservation that is only recently being acknowledged
as a discipline beyond textile conservation, requires an approach that balances the
material and visual integrity of the material culture of which it encompasses. While
the current approach in conservation is to preserve the remaining material presence of
a historical object, this dress as a fashion item needed to represent the 1920s fashion
zeitgeist. Therefore, the highly intervention to remove the interior slip did preserve the
material integrity of this dress because it was now more able to communicate the
fashion of the 1920s. For this treatment, this author utilized fashion conservation-
specific methodologies such as an explicit “material and values-based” approach and
considered the elusive “designer intent” that is central to fashion objects. The author
ultimately found that the determination of authenticity in fashion conservation requires
acknowledgement of the conservator’s inherent subjectivity, and therefore multiple
authenticities exist. In determining the goals of a treatment, a conservator must be
aware of the definition of which they follow and acknowledge it throughout their
treatment.