Costume
Summer 2025
At the Fox Historic Costume Collection at Drexel University, I accessioned, reboxed, and rehoused over 100 garments into the permanent collection over the course of 10 weeks.
This work maximized a cramped storage area, allowed for greater access, helped preserve a large portion of the flat-packed collection, and ensured objects were documented within the online database.
Skills learned include garment conservation practices, improved knowledge of late 19th and early 20th century dress, and understanding of the CatalogIt collection management system.
Organization
Boxes were moved to the new storage in 2012. While there was some continuity, frequent movement and new acquisitions meant most were out of order.
I organized three rows of boxes in flat storage into a roughly chronological order, allowing for greater ease of access.
Reboxing
Through the institute handbook, staff instruction, and video tutorials, I learned how to properly store garments for long-term, minimizing creasing and damage.
Objects stored in buffered tissue were repacked with suitable materials (unbuffered).
Select objects were moved into new double-wide boxes.
Tagging System
Boxes previously had many different post it notes that may have been a forgotten system.
I ensured dates were included when items were repacked, if they were cataloged, and flagged objects needing attention (conservation or deaccessioning).