Textile restorer Marijke de Bruijne's favorite piece

My favorite piece is not the very best costume in the exhibition Worn Stories -Fashion and Costume around 1900 and certainly not one that immediately catches the eye. I could have chosen, for example, the gown of beautiful lilac moiré silk or the gorgeous gown of brown rips silk, with a skirt that falls back in deep pleats. I also really like the elegant lace gown and the more everyday outfit of the skirt with white lace blouse with stand-up collar I would like to wear myself. All equally stunning. Yet I chose a garment that looks less spectacular, but which I gradually came to appreciate more and more as I worked with it as a textile restorer.

Velvet is chic. We wear a velvet dress to a party; it would be a bit crazy to dig up the garden with it. Yet Stedelijk Museum Breda has a 19th-century work trouser in its collection, made of dark brown velvet. The long pants with flap closure have bald spots on the knees and seat. Several tears and store hooks have been repaired with thick thread and large stitches. At the pockets, the pants are torn out and worn along the bottom edge of the legs. The pants have clearly been used extensively. At first this raised questions: why velvet for work pants? When I started working with the pants as a textile restorer, however, I began to understand it better and better.

The pants are fully lined with blue, sturdy linen and are mega-strong due to the double layer. For example, the velvet in the crotch appeared almost completely worn through due to heavy use, but thanks to the linen lining, the whole thing is still held together well. These pants could take a beating. I also noticed that the pants were probably never washed, the velvet is still full and soft, as only unwashed velvet can be. Presumably the pants were only brushed occasionally. And then velvet is suddenly very handy again, because you can brush off the mud very easily.

As a textile restorer, you want to do as little as possible to a pair of pants with such unusual traces of use. The only thing I did was to invisibly support weak areas and tears on the inside with small "patches" to prevent the fabric from tearing any further. Holes and tears, old repairs, bald spots and even stains: they are part of the garment's history and it is all allowed to be seen. They show that these 19th-century pants were really used as work pants. You rarely come across them like this in museum collections.