Students save vintage dresses
David Bowie's rock music streamed through Althea Greenstone's iPod ear buds, but the prim amber silk dress and chestnut velvet cuffs under her sewing needle evoked generations long past. For days, 20-year-old Greenstone and other students toiled in a Smith College theater workshop, immersed in the intricacies of repairing vintage garments in Smith's growing antique apparel collection. After a week of training from a textile preservation specialist, the 12 students from Smith and Mount Holyoke colleges say they'll use their new skills to restore other vintage pieces in each school's collection. "We've had so many of these hidden gems kept away in boxes for years. They were so delicate that we never could take them out and show them off," said Kiki Smith, a Smith College theater professor and costume design teacher. Some of the work was simple by preservation standards: fix a dropped hem, mend a split seam, judge the color hue for fabric needed on replacement buttons. Much of the restoration, however, is complex: create cartridge pleating and other touches by hand to match existing details, or replace the polished cotton linings and weighted silk that had cracked and split over the years. including a tailored bustle and detailed stitching -- suggests it may have been an "afternoon" dress, far too nice for daily drudgery but less ornate than a fancy ball gown. "Both of the sleeves had been taken off and a lot of the edging had fallen off, so it all has to be put back together," Rittenour said. "It's OK, though. It's a pretty cool dress." |
