What event could possibly warrant taking three days to get dressed? The Missouri Historical Society’s upcoming exhibition unCommon Threads: Stories of Missouri Brides is one such occasion—and the mannequins being prepared for it aren’t complaining a bit.

 

Dresses on display showcase different times and styles, from the 1820s to the 1990s. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

Twenty-three dresses are featured in the exhibition, and each one has been carefully evaluated and gently tended to by the staff at MHS’s Library and Research Center (LRC). The garments were not chosen based on their condition, but on the information available about the owner and the importance of the stories they told. Consequently, some of the dresses were not in prime shape. The stories were challenging as well.

 

The curatorial staff’s job was to find the tale behind each dress. Using the Historical Society’s archives at the LRC, they pieced together the personal history of a particular dress, often beginning with only the name of the donor and the date the gown was worn. From the date, they could deduce the owner’s birth and/or death dates and learn about the gown’s colorful past. Their tools included city directories and newspapers; upper-class families were easier to find because they appeared in newspapers more often. The criteria for dress selection were simple: What kind of information could be found about the couple? The information guided the selection of the clothing; if there wasn’t any, the dress was not included in the exhibit. Also, data had to be available for both the bride and the groom. Historical photos discovered during the sleuthing were an added bonus, and some are included in the exhibit.

 

	Emma Johnson's wedding dress from 1888. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

The dresses were all worn by Missouri women from a variety of classes, religions, and ethnicities. The story of the dress from the 1880s is a sentimental one. For her wedding in 1888, Emma Johnson wore the dress her mother wore for her own wedding, on the same date 38 years earlier. Emma made some alterations to the olive green, two-piece, silk satin gown to bring it up to date. On October 17, 1888, she married Alexander Elias Forbes. Alexander was the heir to the John H. Forbes Tea and Coffee Company, the first coffee retailer west of the Mississippi and one of the first to pre-roast and pre-grind coffee beans.

 

Bride Johanna Friedewald's mother made this 1947 dress from a parachute. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

The 1940s dress has a fascinating history as well. Johanna Friedewald was the daughter of a tailor and a seamstress. Johanna worked at Mesker Brothers Iron Co. as a secretary and at a medical company, where she met Ernst Sturm. Ernst’s family had emigrated from Germany to St. Louis in the early part of the 20th century, and his father was a brewer at Anheuser-Busch. When Johanna married Ernst on May 30, 1947, she wore a dress made by her mother, who took apart her own and her daughter Johanna’s clothing to create pattern pieces, then re-sewed the original clothing to wear again. For the wedding dress, she used silk from a parachute brought back from World War II by Johanna’s brother, William Friedewald Jr. The dress is sheer, with a dropped and gathered waist, lace trim, and short train.

 

After all of the research was completed, each dress had to be evaluated in terms of the model that would hold it. The mannequins were the biggest challenge for this exhibit. It’s imperative to support the dresses properly, providing a historical silhouette, as well as display them attractively.

 

	Some of the many varieties of mannequins used in the exhibition. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

MHS owns many different types of dummies: store mannequins; historically shaped, high-end mannequins made in Japan; Mannix headless male or female torsos; and Dorfman unisex torsos. They are in many different styles, shapes, and sizes: Some have a pouter pigeon (puffed-up chest) shape, some have no bust, some have no bottom. Retail store mannequins were too big for most of the old, petite dresses, although some child-size mannequins offered the right dimensions. In one such case, foam was cleverly glued to the feet to add height and make it look like an adult model. Also, store mannequins often come in dynamic poses, which did not always translate to simple and fragile 19th-century dresses—or the women who wore them!

 

In some instances, the staff had to carve models with Olfa retractable blades. The dummies are made of Ethafoam polyethylene foam, which is stable and does not release gases, as Styrofoam does. Although designing a model is a laborious process, the staff welcomed the opportunity to create exactly what they needed.

 

After carving the torso, Collections Care Specialist Shery Hunter covered it with fiberfill to smooth and pad it. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

All Ethafoam had to be covered with fiberfill to smooth and pad it. The fiberfill was then covered with stockinette, a soft fabric, to protect the dresses. Dresses could not be pinned to the mannequins for fear of ruining the garments, so the mannequins themselves had to be modified, or pieces of fiberfill had to be sewn together to pad the figure.

 

Collections Care Specialist Shery Hunter turned to a needle for other handiwork. “Every garment offers distinct challenges somewhere along the line,” she said. To fasten lace and braiding in place, she stitched them with silk filament. She also stitched silk crepoline behind any tears in the fabric to hold it all together and flatten puckers. Most stains and water damage are irreversible and could not be fixed without further damaging the materials, so those spots were left untouched. Wrinkled dresses were steamed with deionized water—one dress dating to 1946 was so wrinkled it required ten steamings.

 

Petticoats were layered under the skirts to add fullness. A very full skirt (think Scarlett O’Hara) required two petticoats with a layer of fiberfill in between. The petticoats are all authentic; they have been donated to MHS and are used as “prop” dresses in exhibitions.

 

Hair was fashioned from paper, then attached to the dummies' heads with tape. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

After the model was refined and dressed, “hair” was added. If a hat or headdress was part of the ensemble, the hair was fashioned from acid-free paper. If not, regular copy paper sufficed. The staff researched hairstyles that were appropriate to the era of the dress—a task made harder because women in old magazine images often wore hats. To create the hair, paper strips were curled with scissors and stuck to the dummy’s head with acid-free double-sided tape.

 

Watching the staff dress a mannequin in a garment from 1896 clarified the process. The costume, known as a second-day dress, could be used for festivities, receiving guests, or travel the day after the wedding.

	The 1896 second-day dress, with its many clasps. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

The dress was slightly “outmoded” for the time period, made of green and black wool accented with braid work. Boasting a slight bustle, high neck, and stays, it could hardly have been considered comfortable by today’s standards. The hem looked unfinished, so it was basted to stiffen it and give the skirt more body.

Because the dress’s waist was tiny, a dummy’s torso was carved out of Ethafoam, then arms were glued to the torso with low-acid hot glue. The dress was carefully placed on the mannequin and painstakingly buttoned with the many little clasps on the bodice. The puffed sleeves hung loosely, so stiff panels were placed inside the sleeves to give them fullness.

 

A wedding dress and matching bonnet from 1856. Photograph © 2007, Missouri Historical Society.

The process for this one garment took days, and it had to be repeated for almost every dress in the exhibition. When all of the mannequins are dressed and inspected in the collections facility at the LRC, the dresses will come off, be packed in boxes, and escorted in vans from the LRC to the History Museum, just one mile away. Once there, the dresses will require further steaming to remove wrinkles. Then the process of dressing will begin all over again.

 

Finally, in June, the dresses will be unveiled at the History Museum. Visitors will ooh and aah over beautiful dresses hanging gracefully on smart models. What won’t be obvious is the research, time, and care—and tricks of the trade—that went into the display.

 

MHS Workshop