Mending ancient clothing
Volunteers, staff repair museum's Ch'ing collection
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By Sandy Johnstone
Of the Emtrild
Hattie Mae Nixon bends intently
over her work, her needle poking
carefully through the delicate silk.
At times she can't see the thin
thread going through the fine
material.
Her work is almost impercepti
ble to the casual observer. Nixon,
a volunteer at the University art
museum, is carefully preserving
an ancient robe that was worn by
a Chinese emperor.
The robe is part of the art
museum's permanent collection
of Ch'ing dynasty costumes, most
of which were donated by Ger
trude Bass Warner in 1922, and
will be part of the opening exhibit
of the museum of Art when it
opens its doors Sunday, Oct. 2 for
its fall season.
While the museum is closed,
due to budget cuts, Nixon and
Barbara Zentner, museum
registrar, are working to
reconstruct garments that have
been damaged.
"Our reconstruction work
makes them safe to exhibit," says
Zentner.
The silk in the shoulders of the
robe Nixon 'is working on has
worn out from constant hanging
in the museum and the gold
thread which winds around the
sleeves is loose. After fixing the
sleeves to prevent further fraying,
ixon has been tacking down the
gold threads to keep them from
falling off.
Besides the sleeves, she has also
sewn down the threads of the
nine dragons embroidered on the
robe — bringing her total work on
the garment to about 100 hours.
Why so much work for one
robe?
This robe is special, according
to Nixon.
By law, only the emperor could
wear gold so only he wore the gar
ment. This particular robe was
worn at least twice, says Nixon.
Some symbols were embroidered
after the original wearing between
1740 and 1790 and size alterations
were made.
Making the emperor's robe was
time-consuming. The whole pro
ess of simply making the silk was
tedious because they used
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Photo by Mark Pynes
Hattie Mae Nixon carefully repairs a garment trom the museum's Ch ine
collection. 6
silkworms, says Zentner.
After the cloth is finished, then
the design, including 12 symbols
that had to be included on every
emperor's robe, were
embroidered.
Nixon speculates the robes
were embroidered by two dif
ferent people, one on each side,
because each side is the mirror
image of the other. The difference
in the quality of the workmanship
seems to suggest that a skilled
person worked with an apprentice
on most robes, she says.
Nixon admits she gets a bit ner
vous when working with such
delicate old materials, but she has
learned to conquer her fear from
constant exposure to the task.
Nixon, a former home
economics professor at the
University, volunteered to help fix
the clothes about 10 years ago and
has been working at it steadily
since.
"I like to do it,” she says.
Once she started working with
the garments she decided to do a
little "detective work" to find out
about them, so she researched the
era and the clothing.
"I probably know as much
about (ancient Chinese garments)
as anyone in Eugene," says Nixon.
For example, official garments
in China were highly regulated. A
badge of material was worn on the
front and back of robes, telling
people who had to bow to
whom.
But not all Chinese apparel was
so controlled. Women were ig
nored for the most part, says Zent
ner, so they could wear what they
wanted.
While Nixon has been able to
discover when and where the
emperor wore his robe, there is
one thing that no one knows.
"We don't know what they wore
underneath the robe. No one ever
dared to gsk," she laughs.
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