The Future of the 20th Century

This is the second in a series of books from the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies, explores the preservation of modern materials in textiles. Featuring multidisciplinary contributions from artists, curators, anthropologists, scientists, and conservators, it examines creation, deterioration, analysis, and conservation challenges associated with synthetic and modern textile materials. Covering objects from costume to theatre scenery, the book highlights the complexities of preserving contemporary textiles and encourages a rethinking of what defines a “”modern”” textile.

The papers in this volume consider the existence and preservation of modern materials in the textile field. This publication presents modern textiles as a subject in its own right and the content is intentionally multidisciplinary to demonstrate the wide spectrum of subjects involved in their preservation. Papers are authored by artists, curators, anthropologists, conservation scientists and conservators while topics cover the creation, collecting, interpretation, detrioration, analysis and conservation of synthetic materials associated with textiles. Modern materials, whether as art or everyday objects, are the basis of the contemporary material world. Accordingly objects encountered within museums and collections increasingly represent a broad spectrum of materials whose preservation may be without precedent. Topics range from familiar textile types, such as costume, to more unusual applications in suitcases, wall hangings, furniture and theatre scenery. Some papers prompt the reader to reconsider what makes a textile modern. These postprints are the second in a series of three volumes of papers emanating from the conferences of the AHRC Research Centre for Textile Conservation and Textile Studies, Textile Conservation Centre, University of Southampton. The themes for the preceding and succeeding volumes are: Scientific analysis of ancient and historic textiles: informing preservation, display and interpretation (Archetype 2005) Textiles and text: re-establishing the links between archival and object-based research (Archetype 2007)

Foreword

Cordelia Rogerson and Paul Garside

Creating and interpreting objects

Scentsory Design: the emotional living tissue

Jenny Tillotson

Can an artist create permanence from transience? The Schmuck Quickies of Yuka Oyama become durable

Cordelia Rogerson and James Beighton

Interpreting the woven devore textile

Andie Robertson

What makes a textile modern? The recycling of clothing in the Punjabi shoddy trade

Lucy Norris

Collecting modern textile materials

In pursuit of forgotten fibres? The development, disappearance and rediscovery of regenerated protein fibres

Mary M. Brooks

'A bomb in the collection': researching and exhibiting early 20th-century fashion

Alexandra Palmer

Early elastic threads and fibres in clothing

Laura Petzold

Material challenges

Identifying modern materials: taking it to the collection

Paul Garside and Paul Wyeth

Man-made fibres from polypropylene to works of art

Thea van Oosten, Ineke Joosten and Luc Megens

Probing the microstructure of protein and polyamide fibres

Paul Garside and Mary M. Brooks

Investigating cellulose nitrate degradation caused by fungal attack

Margarida Silva

Polyurethane foam: investigating the physical and chemical consequences of degradation

Paul Garside and Doon Lovett

Sticky oilskins and stiffened rubber: new challenges for textile conservation

Irene Skals and Yvonne R. Shashoua

The effect of acid dyes on the photodegradation of knitted nylon conservation support net

M.K. Sinha, R.M. Christie and R. Shamey

Freezing the present to preserve the future

Yvonne R. Shashoua

The pits of despair? A preliminary study of the occurrence and deterioration of rubber dress shields

Anna Hodson

Conservation applications: object studies

A global challenge: the search for conservation solutions for Eero Aarnio's Globe/Ball chair

Joelle Wickens

A study of sequins on a Cantonese opera stage curtain

Angela Cheung

Wet look in 1960s furniture design: degradation of polyurethane-coated textile carrier substrates

Tim Bechthold

Storage issues for contemporary textile art: a solution for one example

Rosemary Baker

Television puppets from the 1960s and 1970s: creation, materials and conservation

Rebecca Smith

The treatment of the light-damaged nylon component of a flight suit used during the test flights of Concorde c.1968

Anna Hodson

Modern textile materials in practice at the State Hermitage Museum

Elena Mikolaychuk,

Foreword

Cordelia Rogerson and Paul Garside

Creating and interpreting objects

Scentsory Design: the emotional living tissue

Jenny Tillotson

Can an artist create permanence from transience? The Schmuck Quickies of Yuka Oyama become durable

Cordelia Rogerson and James Beighton

Interpreting the woven devore textile

Andie Robertson

What makes a textile modern? The recycling of clothing in the Punjabi shoddy trade

Lucy Norris

Collecting modern textile materials

In pursuit of forgotten fibres? The development, disappearance and rediscovery of regenerated protein fibres

Mary M. Brooks

'A bomb in the collection': researching and exhibiting early 20th-century fashion

Alexandra Palmer

Early elastic threads and fibres in clothing

Laura Petzold

Material challenges

Identifying modern materials: taking it to the collection

Paul Garside and Paul Wyeth

Man-made fibres from polypropylene to works of art

Thea van Oosten, Ineke Joosten and Luc Megens

Probing the microstructure of protein and polyamide fibres

Paul Garside and Mary M. Brooks

Investigating cellulose nitrate degradation caused by fungal attack

Margarida Silva

Polyurethane foam: investigating the physical and chemical consequences of degradation

Paul Garside and Doon Lovett

Sticky oilskins and stiffened rubber: new challenges for textile conservation

Irene Skals and Yvonne R. Shashoua

The effect of acid dyes on the photodegradation of knitted nylon conservation support net

M.K. Sinha, R.M. Christie and R. Shamey

Freezing the present to preserve the future

Yvonne R. Shashoua

The pits of despair? A preliminary study of the occurrence and deterioration of rubber dress shields

Anna Hodson

Conservation applications: object studies

A global challenge: the search for conservation solutions for Eero Aarnio's Globe/Ball chair

Joelle Wickens

A study of sequins on a Cantonese opera stage curtain

Angela Cheung

Wet look in 1960s furniture design: degradation of polyurethane-coated textile carrier substrates

Tim Bechthold

Storage issues for contemporary textile art: a solution for one example

Rosemary Baker

Television puppets from the 1960s and 1970s: creation, materials and conservation

Rebecca Smith

The treatment of the light-damaged nylon component of a flight suit used during the test flights of Concorde c.1968

Anna Hodson

Modern textile materials in practice at the State Hermitage Museum

Elena Mikolaychuk

• Edited by Cordelia Rogerson
• Edited by Paul Garside