A great idea! The team is looking into it. This link might also be useful to anyone looking for conservation advice http://nzccm.org.nz/directory-find-a-conservator.

All the best
Claire

Thank you for your comment.

‘Wedding Dress of the Week’ is a series of blog posts designed to augment our current exhibition Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. The posts alternate between highlighting a dress from the exhibition and a dress from Te Papa’s collection, which features gowns dating from the late 1700s to the present. For example the post on 13 January highlights recent acquisition – a post-World War II wedding dress made from parachute silk.

While Te Papa is dedicated to showcasing New Zealand and the Pacific, we are also committed to bringing the best of the rest of the world to New Zealand – hence our international exhibition programme of which Unveiled is a part.

Embracing international history, does not mean that we are neglecting our own. We are currently upgrading our wedding dress records for Collections Online so that the collection is accessible publicly. This project includes further research into provenance, conservation, and preparing gowns for detailed photography. A number of these gowns will feature in ‘Wedding Dress of the Week’ over the next three months. In April last year, we also launched the New Zealand Wedding Photography Gallery – an online project aimed at collecting images in order to provide a rich record of changes in New Zealand wedding style – http://sites.tepapa.govt.nz/weddingphotos/

Aware, that many people like yourself are keen to learn about caring for their family heirlooms, our Textile Conservation Team will be running a Conservation Clinic at Te Papa on Tuesday 21 February 2012, 1pm–2pm as part of the Unveiled event programme. The team are also preparing some practical conversation guidelines on the care of wedding dresses which will be available on the Te Papa website by mid-February. Hopefully, these guidelines will be of some assistance to you. You are also welcome to ring the Textile Conservation Team for advice. Most local museums are also happy to provide advice regarding care and storage.

Kind regards
Claire Regnault