I get to investigate a lot of historic garments in my line of work. It's a joy and a privilege (as well as essential!). This is a thread sharing how I look at dress objects when researching, using photos from archive visits. Lots of juicy digital details for you.
This is a pelisse from c. 1810 made of muslin lined with yellow silk, in the collection of @Fashion_Museum. After I lay the object down, I take a full length back and front shot to record its overall proportions and effects. Not like putting it on a mannequin, but useful. 
I sort of stand and think about it as well. Where does it fit in my mental database? What qualities does it have? Is it usual or unusual? Does it confirm trends of the time or have different features? What is the quality, size, fit, construction? Has it been altered or damaged?
I make notes about it with pencil in a notebook and jot down what I see. The more I look, the more comes out.
Lining muslin with silk was a popular Regency technique, which increases more through the 1810s. It creates a lovely shaded pastel effect that sets off the whitework.
Lining muslin with silk was a popular Regency technique, which increases more through the 1810s. It creates a lovely shaded pastel effect that sets off the whitework.
At this point, I get a bit more excited about linings than muslin, because it's received so much attention. In this case, the lining is the silk I've learnt to identify as Persian, frequently mentioned in Regency texts, including Jane Austen's letters
What make it Persian? It's plain weave, ever so slightly loose, soft, shiny and yielding. Sarcenet (sarsenet, sarsnet) is a smidge stiffer, a little more smart. I'm using subjective qualities here because I experience the 'feel' of the textile as much as its technical qualities.
A lot of the interpretation I do is based on translating that feel, or my professional blink if you want to get Gladwellian, into more precise language and identification. This goes for dating as well as components. I call it the laying on of hands, only half joking...
So then I look at the muslin. One of the nice things about the coloured lining is that it provides a contrasting background. This muslin's ground has threads with the characteristic 'wobble' of Indian-made fabric. Not a technical term, but a useful shorthand!
It's got drawn threadwork and cotton thread embroidery as part of the textile, meaning it was sold like that rather than worked after purchase. Having strong verticals means the maker has to work carefully around them, which makes me check how successful they've been.
Nice work! The lines are used exactly all over, and on the bias on the sleeves creating a counterpoint rhythm as well as better movement and fit for the wearer. Note that the sleeves aren't lined, so would show the sleeves of the gown underneath.
There's a different patterned edging on the front and collar though, so where has that come from? Same bit of muslin at the edge, or another co-opted as a trimming? Not sure. You can also see the subtle hem shaping here.
In passing, I think about things like how I'm glad it wasn't me who had to do those very fine pin tucks. We read them now as horizontal decoration but it's hard to get such tiny folds sewn straight, especially on looser weave muslin. And so many! Every detail is hours of labour.
See that leaf pattern along the edge? It appears to have been part of the trim originally. Have a look also at how they're not shy of piecing fabric together. The odd joining seam is less important than using all the fabric economically.
But up on the collar, the pattern seems to have been worked after construction because it goes over the seams. Look at all the constructional seams while we're here!
The photos I take are usually specific and determined by my thinking about the garment. My aim is to take images that will be useful on their own many years after I've been at the archive, and that will record how I saw it then, this thread being a case in point.
It's not about beauty, it's about recording perception and being able to stimulate the same perceptions at a distance. I often draw bits, or construction details to clarify. In order to make the most of limited archive time, photos are much more effective than drawing everything.
Because I make and am deeply interested in how people in the past made, I record sewing threads and seam techniques. The Persian is sewn with silk, the muslin with fine cotton thread. Threads are underappreciated as dating and cultural markers!
Little things like whether the silk thread is flossed or plied, or if the default sewing thread is cotton or linen can tell you bigger things about global textile economies and industrial innovation. Ditto the composition of tapes and ribbons.
If I can I record fabric widths. The Persian is a nice standard 18 inches, or foot and a half wide. Silks were generally woven narrower than other fabrics so you need more yardage to make a gown. I look at where they use full breadths, selvedges and gores, too.
I like it when the garment is falling apart a bit because then I can peep inside and see what they're doing with seams and sewing. If a silk fabric has a visible selvedge it can reveal where the silk was made, usually England or France - important when they're at war!
You might have noticed I've not much mentioned the style yet. For me, the style, the 'fashion'-ness of it, is indivisible from its construction, so it's all building up the picture together. Often it's when the style and construction clash that misdating or copying is revealed.
However, this is a beautiful object made entirely when it's purported to be. Notable features of its time include the back cut straight through with no waist seam (like Jane Austen's pelisse), a deepening collar, and sleeveheads with an increasing puff. Even pushing 1812ish?
All of this takes me 10-20 minutes, largely working through in my head with relevant notes, and then the photos. If there's anything I see that isn't on the museum's cataloguing, I note this too, and send them more details when I've had a chance to write them up.
And then, on to the next object! It can be quite draining to concentrate on hard looking for so long and I'm usually very tired at the end of the day. I try to label and organise the photos that evening with their accession number to keep the work down, while it's fresh.
I love having the museum catalogue records to look at too, and see any contextual information that might change what I see. Chatting with the curator or stores assistant is also a joy of archival research. One hears a lot informally.
I absorb most of this information implicitly as wholesale understanding. It takes a lot longer to make it explicit, in a form that others can access, whether a catalogue, publication, or Twitter thread. It's important though - why research if not, ultimately, to share?
A lot of my work and PhD has been about exploring how to make implicit dress knowledge explicit, whether that's about making, styles, dating or any of the myriad other ways of interpreting clothes. I feel a responsibility to shaking the contents of my head out for others!
