The Extant Garment Project
Preserving Wardrobes of Yesterday for Tomorrow's Wear
The Extant Garment Project is an ongoing labour-of-love. No matter how well cared for and conserved a garment is, one day it will be dust. Our goal is to preserve the garments in our collection in digital perpetuity, while also providing resources to the fashion history community. Each garment will be researched as much as possible and gone over with a very careful fine-tooth comb - okay, okay, we mean 'camera' - and a pattern will be taken from it. Each instalment of the project includes photographs of the original, our detailed notes - including research and provenance (when available) - and the single-size pattern (with instructions) of the original garment. The research will be presented free-of-charge and open to all.
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Visit the Extant Garment Project website to subscribe and/or follow us on Instagram to be kept in the loop of when a new garment is being processed and when all of the materials are posted.
If You'd Like to Contribute
We know that we have certain limitations when it comes to this massive undertaking among them are time, access to a wider set of research materials, and finances. We whole-heartedly welcome any input you may have on how we can improve our efforts! So, if you have questions about our work so far that will help guide us, suggestions, access to references/resources, garments you'd like to include, or even financial gifts you'd like to give to the Extant Garment Project, please do so by contacting us through either website, Instagram, etc. Financial gifts can be given through the project's website and - while not tax deductible, as we are not a non-profit company - will be devoted solely toward the freely-available Extant Garment Project and we will be completely transparent about how each penny is spent.