Some smell like cedar from their time in the closet but some newer acquisitions have residual Moth Ball smell, which I don’t mind so much but I hope to segregate the moth ball ones from the others

I am thinking of bugs.

Silk and wool stored in silk is a recipe for disaster if you get moths. Clothing moths eat animal proteins like silk, wool, pet fur, eta.

Polyester is better for a outer wrapping as bugs are less likely to chew through it

If you are worried that an item is contaminated with eggs, freeze it for maybe a week to kill the eggs

Get some pheromone traps for clothing moths so you get early warning of their presence. Place them nearby in easy to see spots so you can easily check them.

Avoid moth balls as they are toxic. Some herbs are a deterrent to moths and make the clothes smell good. I prefer the smell of rosemary over lavender, but both are an option

It's good practice to give an airing out to clothes and stashed fabric no matter the storage conditions. Moving then around and getting a current of air through a place keeps the musty smell away. I also make sachets of dried lavender and sometimes other fragrant flowers in my drawers to scent them to smell nice but I don't own too much I store for that long.

I recently acquired a couple antique items that reek of mothballs. I was told by several antique textile experts to place the articles in lidded plastic bins with an open container of activated charcoal (like the stuff for aquariums). Make sure the charcoal isn't touching the fabrics. Replace charcoal as needed over the next few weeks-month until the bulk of the smell has dissipated. Just like charcoal sneaker odor-eaters. The mothballs did their job fabulously though, so I can't complain too much! I just need to order the charcoal and try it for myself, but I figured it was a cheap remedy that didn't involve any liquids touching the delicate items so I'm looking forward to seeing if it works. Maybe someone else on here has another good solution!

Fresh lavender in a cloth bag. I have linens that I pull out for a special event once per year, and four years later my linens still smelled fresh.

Lay the coat completely flat on the floor, and fold the skirts inward until the entire garment is the width of a wide, shallow box - using the pleats of the back to your advantage. Then fold it horizontally so it all fits in, and wrap in tissue paper. The best way to fold fabric is to try and make it as thin as possible, while taking up as much space as possible (rather than depth), to avoid folding it too many times - but if it's a creasy fabric like silk, expect to have to steam it when you take it back out. This is sadly unavoidable! The stomacher, if you have one, can be placed on top of the folded gown, and I'd recommend taking out all lacings and putting them in the box separately.

Underskirts can be hung from a hanger by passing the ties through the dress to form a loop - this is also the best way to hang crinolines and panniers, if they aren't collapsible into a box.

I recommend putting a clear label on the box describing its contents, and putting it somewhere high up in a dry cupboard.

Hope this helps!

I bought two coat racks from ikea and two large garment bags and hang most things. The bags are big enough to hang lots of things, not just one.

Dresses go in the garment bags and I can hang my bustles, crinolines, and umbrellas from hooks.

There are also shelves for shoes, but I keep other small accessories (gloves, fans, etc) in some plastic containers on those lower shelves.

I also have a ton of hats so I bought two long curtain rods and curtain clips and I hang most of my hats. I have eaves so they hang from there and they're not too high up that they're difficult to grab.

I got a garment rack from IKEA and hang everything. Not the most space effective but I put it in the basement with a large plastic zippered cover on it and they're all there!

Moths will eat any protein- including silk and anything with human sweat on it. So even if you have no wool you still want to do a bit of moth prevention. Giving it a launder/dry clean or steam before packing it away and including some cedar or lavender in the box will help.

My speciality! I’m a museum professional who’s primarily worked with textiles and long-term textile storage. Lemme spell out some advice here:

1. How often are you getting into this garment? Once a month? More than that? Less than that? This will determine how your storage looks. If it’s more than one month, you want to fold the garment. Less than one month at a time, you can get away with hanging it.

2. If you’re hanging the garment, you want the hanger to be padded out as much as possible. At least a one-inch radius to the hanger itself, and then use an opaque dress bag over that. You want to make sure there isn’t the sharp crease at the top, because the fabric can stretch slightly there, and almost look bleached. (This is also a thing with trousers, don’t fold them in half over a hanger, but instead have pinch clips at their waist band, or a wide diameter to the hanger.)

3. If you’re folding it, you need to think about what you’re storing it in. Archival boxes can be found online, and they’re usually fairly good in keeping pests out and not hurting the textiles, as they aren’t acidic and don’t off-gas like plastic. That being said, they can let pests in, and certain pests will eat cellulose (cockroaches, mice sometimes, carpet beetles, etc) to get to the high-protein textile within (if it’s a protein-based textile like silk or wool). Plastic is less likely to be eaten, but it does off-gas, which can break down the fibers more of the garment, or make them smell of plastic. Basically, the only thing I will say makes for a bad box is wood. Don’t have any wood in your storage material, as it turns acidic and can ruin objects faster than anything else. If you’re worried about moths and pests, wash the garment well and immediately put it into storage, or place the garment (if there isn’t any mirrors, shells, or plastic) into a freezer for a couple of weeks before placing it directly into storage.

4. When you’re folding it, get lots of archival tissue paper. This is ph neutral paper, without any dyes, so it won’t hurt the object. What you’re gonna do is place paper down onto the bottom of the box first, and then place your folded garment onto it, and then tissue paper on top. Additionally, you’re going to make little sausages sort of things out of the tissue paper. Long round tubes that will settle into the folds of the garment. Side seams, arms, anywhere there’s a fold in the garment. You don’t want creases, and that’s going to prevent creases that permanently damage the garment. If you have beading or decoration, place extra tissue paper on that, so it doesn’t dig into the object. Between each layer of fabric goes another single layer of tissue paper. It sounds like a lot, but keeping everything from touching itself helps to prevent creasing, dye bleed, as well as accelerated aging, as certain textiles can make for a feedback loop of self-destruction.

5. Once everything’s in its storage housing, store it somewhere where the humidity and temperature will be fairly steady, and out of the light. High humidity promotes bugs and decay, while light promotes bleaching and brittleness in the object.

And that’s all! It sounds like a lot, and it all depends upon how you want to store the object and how safe you want it. This is a basic framework and approach for any garment, so feel free to use it as a road map for any garment. Also, feel free to ask me any questions you might have, I’m happy to answer them.

Look at the textile preservation kits from a good archival supply place like Gaylord. At the very least, get the tissue paper.

Check with your local dry cleaner.  My local dry cleaner has services for preserving things like wedding dresses. Maybe they would have something similar?  Maybe some kind of shadow box that can display but also protect? 

Keep it out of direct sunlight and away from heaters/vents.

Enjoy it. It won’t last forever no matter what, and I bet both your aunt and grandmother would rather you keep it out and enjoy its beauty rather than sticking it in a box “for safekeeping.”

The silk dress is from 1865. It looks so heavy and hard to store safely.

When I see this kind of dress I always think about how they might have been stored by the original owners. Crinolines too. Wardrobes from the 1800s don't always look big enough to store dresses made with yards of fabric and big crinolines. I wouldn't hang a modern heavy silk dress in a wardrobe, so did Victorians store their silk gowns in chests and boxes?

My other question is how some silk dresses have survived so perfectly over the years. Is it down to the type of silk or the type of dye?

OK, my shift has ended and now I can revisit this!

In my experience, things were stored in a variety of different ways: sometimes they were hung on hooks or metal hangers like we would recognize today (sometimes with skirts folded over the hangers); other times they were folded in drawers to be either shaken out, pressed, or steamed when they were needed to be worn if they had creases. There's another comments up above that has some really interesting stuff about what was recommended in various household manuals, and I had not read that so it's really cool to see – I'm just going by how things were found in the house museum where I work.

I will say that the silk taffeta used to make these dresses is often much lighter weight than it seems and, in my personal experience of transporting modern ball gowns that I have made in the same fabric, it can fold or roll up very small for storage . Not that I've ever seen the rolling method in the period, or that I necessarily recommend it if you're not racing about on modern public transit trying to get to a ball venue. They can fold up quite flat, and hoop skirts also were generally stored flat on a hook or similar – they collapse into basically a bunch of concentric circles of flat, flexible wire.

As for survival, that can really depend on a lot of factors: how much UV light the dress was exposed to over the years, how frequently it was worn, and critically the chemicals used to process the silk. In the Victorian era, there was a big problem with metallic salts being used to provide weight and depth of color when silk was processed; these salts were not detectable to the naked eye, but they could shred the fibers on a microscopic level, on repairable damage called "shattering." some of this happened over longer periods of time, but there is evidence that some garments started shattering within weeks of being taken home from the dressmaker.

some people just got lucky and had silk that was not processed with metallic salts, and those dresses are more likely to survive. It was truly a crapshoot; various ladies' magazines published alleged ways to tell how a length of silk was made in the store, but there wasn't really a foolproof method as far as I'm aware. (also some of the methods involved dripping chemical chemicals onto the fabric, and I very much doubt shopkeepers would've taken kindly to that!)

As for UV exposure, that's part of the survivorship bias factor – garments that were worn less often, and usually uncommonly small garments that could not be taken apart to reuse the fabric, are more likely to survive into museums. It creates the impression that people were much smaller than they are today on average, which is not borne out by photographs, paintings, Jewelry sizes, or statistics.

I think they had special rooms where they stored this stuff. It was only the extremely wealthy who dressed this way. Ever tour one of those old timey museum mansion homes? There are rooms off of rooms upon rooms. Lol. Also, the dress probably laid flat once the hoop was removed. The hoops weren’t attached when stored.

The wardrobes probably contained their lounging clothes, robe type wraps, and nightgowns. This way, they’d take off all this frilly stuff, hand it to the servants, and grab something light out of the closet/wardrobe.

Funny people always think silk is fragile when it's really such a strong fiber. Fair, it'll stain and mark easily. But the threads are super strong for how thin they are

Yep!

One of the other factors for garments that look smaller on the horizontal axis, so to speak, is what people were likely to save. namely garments from life milestones that generally happened to people at young ages when they were at their physical smallest in adulthood. Also, for an event like a wedding, a debut, a court presentation, etc., women were more likely to tightlace, which was not the everyday norm. Just like nowadays, one might be more inclined to put up with discomfort for a few hours to look ultra-fashionable on a special day than one would be in every day life.

A woman saves her wedding gown from a day when she laced much tighter than she normally would to look more like a fashion plate for two hours, but not the dress she wears around the house years later when she's had five children. So the wedding gown goes into the museum, and people take that as a representation of her body even though it's really not.

Most dresses didn't survive over the years! The natural wear and tear to the material plus the previously incredibly common practice of upcycling old dresses means that we actually have very few remaining pieces. I mean think of how many dresses must have existed at any given time and compare it to the few that managed to make it to museums.

Most of the still existing clothing tends to be from the upper class. Many were not frequently worn and likely spent a lot of time in storage. But it's really just luck that the ones that survived did.

If you’re actually using them, buy small rounded scarf hooks. They make velvet ones that won’t damage them and you can hang them on closet rods. For special ones or if you don’t actually wear them often, keep them in their boxes stored and add a label to the box so you can stack boxes and without opening know which scarves are in which boxes.

I keep mine neatly folded, with their edges lined up like a file folder system, in the top locking drawers of a large dresser. I have been collecting for a while and have a decently sized amount of Hermès scarves, shawls and twillies at this point. I have a photo album I keep updated with each of them laid flat for easy browsing for wardrobe planning where I have them sorted by their predominate color.

Organization definitely encourages you to reach for them more often! Also I'd encourage you to join the Purse Forum if you haven't yet and follow the Hermès Scarf of the Day posts for inspo on everything from tying to styling. They have themes that change every week to join in if you like. Last week was 'Let It Snow: Winter themes or pair your scarf with a holiday mock/cocktail,' and this week has been 'New Kids on the Block: New designers or those with less than 5 designs.' Such a great resource and a wonderful community of enthusiasts.

I store my Hermes scarves folded in their box, and store other silk scarves folded in a white plastic storage bin from the container store. All boxes and bins are at my eye level so I see them and so that they’re out of reach for my dog/cat! I don’t have so many that I need to see them to remember what I have, though. Abigail Goodman on TikTok stores hers folded in a shallow drawer and I’m jealous of her setup!

I store mine folded in their boxes tucked away in my closet. Mostly because it looks pretty, but also to keep them away from sunlight. Honestly, it only works because I don’t have many of them (<10) - I can’t easily tell which is which since my boxes aren’t labeled, so it won’t be a sustainable method as my collection grows. Curious to hear what other people do too!

This is what I use. I bought mine from the container store. Search storage on this sub and you’ll find a thread with tons of storage options and pictures.

Thank you. I see several places around that sell those types of drawers, so I’ll check them out. Seeing them is definitely a strong selling point to me.

YT is great at telling us things we should be doing.

Since this is going to be dry cleaned in the future, giving this a good steamy pressing is all that is needed. It also gives you a chance to look for any weaving flaws or extra huge slubs (dupioni is already a slubby fabric) that you might want to strategically avoid when laying out your pattern. Place a safety pin across from it in the selvage as a reminder. If you don't have enough fabric to completely avoid it, try to have the flaw on a less noticeable section such as on the back, under the arm, or further down on the garment. Nothing is worse than realizing that the flaw is front and center staring at you every time you look at it in the mirror.

Also, use the pressing as an opportunity to check to see if there are any areas that are faded or are sun damaged, such as along folded creases that might be exposed to sunlight while folded on a shelf.

Make a mockup first so that you don't have to alter the dupioni very much. After you've cut it out, use some of the off cuts to practice sewing, serging, and pressing to give you a sense of how it handles. Press the silk seams lightly at first until after you've tried it on, as it can be hard to get well pressed creases out if you do have to let it out. A shot of steam and a light finger pressing is often enough for the first pressing when assembling it.

As a person that's treated dupioni in ways many people would be appalled by, I can vouch that you don't need to be precious with it, especially for this purpose. It will hold up fine in the wash. Serge the raw edges, wash it on cold, delicate cycle. Hang to dry. You can iron it if you feel the texture is too crispy afterwards. It will soften and regain more shine.

I made my wedding gown with silk dupioni after dyeing it 3 times to get the color right (with hot water, all in a washing machine with an agitator)-- it did shrink a little in the process. I even permed it (like with an at-home hair perming kit) in an attempt to set pleats. It didn't work as well as I'd hoped, but it didn't really hurt the material either. We also used to use sheets of it to protect furniture that our bird would like to perch (and poop) on. We'd send it through the wash on a regular basis and reuse it. It's not a utilitarian fabric, but it holds up very well to washing nevertheless.

I wash my dupioni, it loses some shine and stiffness but is still very lovely to me. Maybe toss a swatch in the washer and see what happens?

You can also have it drycleaned as yardage.

I've always pretreated my fabric the same way it will be treated after the garment is complete. In your case, I'd have it dry cleaned, then proceed with your project.

So refreshing to hear others treating special fabric’s pragmatically, like I do!

Unless they’re extremely rare, I wouldn’t worry about dust too much. They are just soccer shirts meant to be worn and made of basic material. I hang all of mine in a closet. My biggest concern is heat causing the sponsor or name set to smear. I have periodically stored my shirts in plastic storage tubs. I include a cedar ring to protect them and put some paper over any sponsors or name sets that I fear might get sticky and smear.

I have mine on a rail and dust is no issue. Bigger issue is going to be moths- so get some moth paper to kill them.

I was wondering this as well. I’ve been keeping jersey bags with the intention of storing them long term but wasn’t sure if hanging in a closet is better.

Store in the wardrobe is more useful or you can cover the shirt witha plastic transparent bag

Woollens go in ziplock bags. Cedar balls with lavender in the drawer. So far moths seem uninterested in my silk.

https://www.pestrol.com.au/buy-online/envirosafe-domestic-clothes-moth-trap-x-2/?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=17182589695&gbraid=0AAAAAC7OKpKo7zgZNQck2UbPwJkI8RL7F&gclid=Cj0KCQjw0erBBhDTARIsAKO8iqTq3K3EZKVSllGWfI9OGAsPArLPtExUwlDGR1KSpCPIsCRfKkQ4xfoaArMiEALw_wcB

Just ensure theyre stored clean and not kept in damp conditions. I keep mine in my wardrobe (not packed) and give them an occasional spritz of a fabric spray. I have lots of expensice wool, cashmere, silk etc Never had any issues

https://preview.redd.it/zfer1tazjb4f1.jpeg?width=967&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c81a89215a0208c1d0447ddefd10ddf65b5b4c34

I’d suggest boxing them if you’re unsure of how to pack them— large archival boxes where there will be minimal folds. Pad out the folds with tissue. Tissue and boxes should be unbuffered unless they are made from plant fibers (cotton,flax,linen…) those plant based items should be in buffered boxes and tissue.

You’ll need to be on the lookout for moths, carpet beetles, and other pests. You will want to keep an eye out on the silk items for shattering from past less-than-ideal storage.

There’s a few connecting to collections care webinars that you can watch that would likely be helpful. I’d encourage you to seek those out and watch them even if they’re pre-covid.

I suggest you take a look at the AIC textile conservation group! Besides actual conservation treatments, they also have preventive care info.

If any of these are stored hanging but are not on [padded hangers] (https://www.nps.gov/museum/publications/conserveogram/04-05.pdf), making those is a good project for volunteers and interns. It's also something good to do during webinars or virtual meetings where you don't have to contribute much. I'm really terrible at sewing, but I've managed to make hundreds of these things. If they're stored this way, they should either be in an enclosed cabinet or have a dust cloth. Unbleached muslin works well for this or Tyvek.

Boxing textiles is a great way to ensure they stay in a really stable environment, because the boxes buffer against environmental changes. It will also provide some protection against pests (not that it'll stop them entirely) and keep them from getting dusty. You just have to pad out the garment and any folds with acid free tissue paper. Not everything is a good fit for boxing but lots are.

You might also check out more of the National Park Service's [Conserve O Grams] (https://www.nps.gov/subjects/museums/conserve-o-grams.htm) to see if there's anything helpful.

What type of garments are you primarily dealing with here?

Not a conservator myself, but I am a fashion designer with an interest in historical fashion. These are all great suggestions, especially the boxes and the garment bags/hanger covers, just adding my two cents of advice that making sure you know what garments (and their trims) are made of can help a lot when deciding how to store them.

For instance, the old advice of how knits/stretch fabric should never be on hangers, and how the way a synthetic fibre might degrade will be very different from a cellulose or protein fibre. Also if there's metal findings or metallic thread that might have an affect on some fibres long term, or if it's an older piece or one made with more traditional tailoring techniques the adhesives or interfacing may be rabbit glue, which might attract different kinds of pests or break down differently than synthetic adhesives. Wrapping beaded sections in soft acid free tissue paper so it can't get caught or rub on more delicate areas is also good, as is anything you can do to wrap or insulate lace trim or lace sections.

Hope this helps, and good luck!