Beautiful 1930 wedding dress_Damaged lace care

Emerald Adams

Emerald Adams

Registered Guest
Hello!
I am not sure if this is a good place to send questions about old lace but I thought I would give it a shot.
I am getting married next year and I found this really beautiful 1930 wedding dress online and decided to give it a try. It is everything I had hoped it would be but unfortunately it has significant damage to the lace. I have a few days to decided if I am keeping it or not and I am willing to keep it if it has so chance of being repared or at least not further damaged. I would so greatly appreciate some thoughts from someone who knows about the care of such items. Thank you so much!
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It's very pretty piece. I am no expert but perhaps a seamstress would be able to fix it? Maybe someone on here would know more then I do as how to fix it, but nice piece...good luck!
 
Is the dress completely covered with lace? There is really no good way to "repair" this type of lace, but if the areas are not too large they could be backed with crepelinme to stabilize the areas. It works well on a yoke, or perhaps sleeves, but would cost prohibitive to unlie a complete dress.
Museum textile conservation suppliers carry it.
Since you have some time could you find an historic pattern to have a similar dress made?
Marian
 
Hi Emerald and welcome to the forums.

This is a beautiful but unwearable dress. You are correct about the damage being significant. This fabric has lost its integrity and will continue to deteriorate. I no longer buy dresses in this condition because the restoration work required is great and fruitless.

In theory it can be repaired but that process of handling it will damage it more. I have repaired lace dresses like this and the more you repair, the more work it needs. It will be many, many hours of fine work with a single silk thread, and will be very expensive. I've spent more than ten hours restoring a dress like this and it remained unwearable due to the fragility of the material.

As Marian says, you can back it onto a stabilizing material to prevent further deterioration, but a supporting a fine lace like this will change the soft way that it drapes and hangs - a great part of its appeal. You will need a lot of vintage silk tulle dyed to match the colour.

Emerald, my best advice is this: if you love it and don't mind the damage I would wear it as is (but hope you didn't pay much much for it). If you want to get it restored, keep in mind that the cost will be far in excess of a better dress and it will likely still continue to rip and deteriorate.
 
Emerald, I just found the dress online and the photos that the seller put up do not show any damage - she states that there are "a few scattered small frayed breaks in the lace" but what you've shown above is a lot more than this.

My question is this: is the damage just in one part with the rest of the lace good? In which case, perhaps the damaged portion could be replaced by moving a lace panel from elsewhere in the dress.
 
Hello Nicole!
Yes the description is misleading, there is similar damage throughout the dress. That photo is of the worst part.
 
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