Storage of gowns

As some of you may know, I package wedding gowns for fun and profit,
and I'm looking for professional confirmation of one of my
procedures.  We fold the gowns carefully with rag tissue, and box
them in a polypropylene chest, sometimes sealing them in a nitrogen
purged,  oxygen-free, barrier film bag with a quantity of "Ageless".

Although we include veils, ring pillows, etc with the gown, we will
not package the bride's ritual garter, as I suspect the elastic may
prove to be damaging to the adjacent gown in the package, nor do we
package shoes (as I fear for the residual glues, solvents, dyes,
cleaning fluids, etc.).  I don't remove elastic straps at the
shoulders, partly for the work involved, and partly because I
believe it may be going too far- these are brides, not museum
administrators.

This leads me to an interesting question: Should the "cheaters"
(foam rubber forms which are used to enhance the figure of some
lesser endowed brides) be removed?  The operation is simple, only a
few stitches hold them in place, but are they likely to damage the
fabric if allowed to remain? (80% of the gowns are polyester, the
remainder are almost all silk.)  Keeping them in place makes the
"stuffing" of the gown (we use ethafoam and more tissue) a little
easier, but it's only a few minutes work.  My question is- is it
worth removing them, or am I going over the edge?

Any comments, questions or suggestions about this fairly esoteric
project would be appreciated. For example, I now package a small
sheet of Corrosion Intercept (a polyethylene sheet doped with
molecular copper) with gowns which have silver filled "bugle beads".
I hope this will further forestall the inevitable tarnishing of the
silver inside the tubular glass beads. I thank you in advance for
your input.

Jerry Shiner
Keepsafe Systems &
Forever Yours Bridal Gown Preservation

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                  Conservation DistList Instance 10:28
                Distributed: Tuesday, September 17, 1996
                       Message Id: cdl-10-28-007
                                  ***