When you have a vintage clothing collection you need to store and archive, there are crucial steps that need to take place first. Here are some tips on properly preparing your historical clothing for professional storage.
Clean and dust
Before you archive clothing with a company, make sure your vintage items are properly cleaned and dust-free. Contaminants can break down the fabric over time. It’s best to have them professionally cleaned before contacting a business for storage services, but if you’re taking care of them at home, be sure to follow any instructions provided for the material and use cleaners specially formulated for vintage clothing.
Inspect for insects and treat
Most professional garment storage companies will perform an inspection as well, but doing your own is a good way to avoid surprises when experts take a look at your pieces. Beetles, moths, silverfish and other pests can damage textiles. Inspect your clothing for any of these insects. Use the appropriate traps to remove them from your environment, so it’s ready for new pieces in your collection. Archival boxes for clothes are specially designed for fabric storage, but they can’t protect from bugs that are already there.
Research professional storage services
Choosing a company to archive clothing with is no small decision. This is your prized collection, which you’ve gathered with care. Whether your pieces are part of an archive, curated for fashion studies, chosen for stylists at your business or acting as a catalog of your designed garments, you’ll want to be confident about the storage methods in use. Do they often handle designer clothes? What sort of archival boxes for clothes do they store your pieces in? How do they organize and protect your collection? Look up information on their websites to understand how a company runs their business before you give them yours.
Those are the essential features, but you should also look into the extra services that could prove useful as your fashion collection changes and grows. Look for digital archive tools, delivery and pickup options or garment photography to suit your needs. You might not need these now — but it’s always better to have the solution there just in case than needing to change companies later for that reason.
Learn about UOVO Fashion
As your clothing storage expert, we specialize in vintage clothing storage and more. Our professionals have worked with iconic design houses like Oscar de la Renta, Carolina Herrera and Jason Wu. We know how to store your vintage apparel, and we provide helpful technology like our MyCloset to give you information about your collection whenever you need it. By storing your clothing with us, you don’t have to worry about finding the right environment for these historic pieces. Our facilities are monitored by video and motion detectors 24/7 and are air-purified and temperature-controlled.
Contact us today to learn more about how UOVO Fashion will store and safeguard your vintage clothing collection. As you discover more luxurious pieces from times past, you can explore additional solutions from our exceptional team, from seasonal wardrobe storage to inventory and photography/, and more. We’ll respond quickly to your questions to keep you focused on curating new pieces, planning a new syllabus or pursuing your unique line of fashion work — instead of losing time to archiving your pieces.
Sources:
https://www.itsbeyondmycontrol.com/how-to-store-vintage-clothing-like-a-pro/