Refashioning and Redressing - Conserving and Displaying Dress Mary Brooks, Dinah Eastop

This volume explores the conservation and presentation of dress in museums and beyond as a complex, collaborative process. Recognizing this process as a dynamic interaction of investigation, interpretation, intervention, re-creation, and display, Refashioning and Redress: Conserving and Displaying Dress examines the ways in which these seemingly static exhibitions of "costume" or "fashion" are actively engaged in cultural production. The seventeen case studies included here reflect a broad range of practice and are presented by conservators, curators, makers, and researchers from around the world, exposing changing approaches and actions at different times and in different places. Ranging from the practical to the conceptual, these contributions demonstrate the material, social, and philosophical interactions inherent in the conservation and display of dress and draw upon diverse disciplines ranging from dress history to social history, material cultural studies to fashion studies, and conservation to museology. Case studies include fashion as spectacle in the museum, dress as political and personal memorialization, and theatrical dress, as well as dress from living indigenous cultures, dress in fragments, and dress online.

Mary M. Brooks is a conservator, curator, and consultant. She is currently teaching conservation, museology, and cultural heritage studies at Durham University, England. Dinah D. Eastop is a conservator, researcher, and educator. She works as a consultant in conservation and material culture studies for universities and heritage organizations worldwide, notably for ICCROM. They are the editors of Changing Views of Textile Conservation (Getty Publications, 2011).