When Mary Kerney Levenstein put her heel through the hem of a good evening dress, she was upset but didn`t think it would necessarily turn out to be a big deal getting it repaired.
She was wrong. It turned into a saga of dress repair.
She went to numerous dry cleaners in New York. They wouldn`t touch it. She took it to seamstresses, and the reaction was the same. Finally someone suggested that she take the ailing gown to a textile conservator-a person with a background in physics and the history of textiles.
The conservator she found took the dress to the Metropolitan Museum and put it through a textile scanner, which gave an analysis of the fiber content and elements to which the dress had been exposed.
With that knowledge, the conservator was able to repair the dress.
Levenstein got more than a repaired gown in the process.
She got the idea for a book that would tell people just how to take care of their belongings.
”Caring for Your Cherished Possessions” (Crown Publishers Inc., $14.95), written with longtime friend Cordelia Frances Biddle, was the result. Already in its second printing since publication last year, the book gives the how-to`s of caring for everything from furs to silver to family photographs.
Biddle became part of the project after listening to and empathizing with Levenstein`s problems of getting the dress repaired.
”The ultimate (story of the dress) was that I took it to the conservator in a plastic bag. She was stunned. She told me that the plastic prevents air circulation, and clothes will disintegrate. I was shocked; I realized I knew nothing about how to take care of my clothes,” Levenstein said.
”And Cordelia had inherited some fine linens and had kept them folded with sachets in them. She took them out to use them, and they were in tatters. The sachets had eaten holes through everything.”
This is a no-nonsense book. The chapters are well defined by product
(linens and clothing, jewelry, books, photographs, glass, etc.), so it`s easy to find the particular object you want information about. There are no anecdotes or cute tidbits to crowd the pages; this is all straightforward information. A source and service listing is included.
Though much of the book does deal with possessions that are
”cherished,” as in old and expensive, there are many tips along the line of Hints from Heloise, such as getting candle wax off a wood surface (and, for that matter, preventing candles from dripping in the first place) and removing ink stains from clothing.
”It`s not just a book for people who have fine things,” Levenstein said. ”It`s about things you love, things that have value for you and that you want to respect.
”I think there`s a trend to want to preserve things. People can no longer afford to keep replacing. Also, there`s a growing awareness that it`s irresponsible to the environment to keep discarding things. And nostalgia, I believe there`s a desire to keep things that have been handed down from previous generations, things that we in turn would like to pass on.”
Some bits from the book:
– Wood adapts slowly to temperature changes. The shock of turning the air conditioning on high during the summer or turning the heat to 68 from 50 degrees in your weekend house on Fridays and then back down to 50 on Sundays can damage your wood.
– Sachets can eat away fine fabrics. Save sachets for your lingerie drawer, where clothes are rotated, washed and aired with frequency.
– Don`t leave clothes folded for long periods. The fold lines will set, discolor and eventually tear.
– If you have forgotten to put your fur in cold storage, you can freeze it (if your freezer has room) for as long as 72 hours to kill any moth larvae. Then drape a sheet over it and hang in a cool, dry mothproofed place or send to storage.
– To keep pearls lustrous, wear them often; if you don`t have occasion to wear them during the day, wear them to bed at night.
– You`re better off storing photographs in a cardboard box than putting them in many of the photograph albums that are on the market. The low-grade paper and acidic adhesives in these albums accelerate the decay of pictures. Special archival albums are the best protection.
– Dew and sunlight are wonderful for whitening clothes. In the early morning, spread clothing directly on the dewy grass.
