Being a historian of material culture is, of course, a big challenge during a pandemic and national lockdown. While I knew going into my dissertation that there was the possibility of the museums and archives not reopening at all in time for my deadlines, I was eternally hopeful it wouldn’t come to that.
So, when it got to the end of the summer and still the collections I needed were closed, it was starting to seem like I might not get to see things after all. This was why when my enquiry to a private dealer to view a pair of jumps she currently owned was accepted, I was over the moon.
This was the first, and ultimately one of only three pairs, that I was able to see, handle and analyse in person. I spent a rapt several hours in the basement kitchen of the dealer’s house entranced by all the details only I would find fascinating after poring over the limited museum pictures I had managed to find online.
Most exciting, and valuable, was getting a true sense of the ‘hand’ of these garments, of really understanding what the weight, drape, warmth, textures, and shapes were like, the tactile experience of being with the garment. My most exciting moment was discovering that it was reworked from a pre-existing garment based on the unusual presence of silk inside the lining, and the placement of seamlines across pattern pieces. The discovery was not an unexpected one, reworking was common in the eighteenth-century, but it gave a real sense of connection to the lives these textiles go through and the iterations over time.
That kind of experience is one that simply cannot be matched by even the most detailed photos or videos in online catalogues.