WW II Nurse's Uniform Preservation

Looking for a way to frame oversized garmentsand other textiles that customers bring to your shop? There are a number of things to consider—mounting to support the weight of the item, framing to showcase as much of the piece as possible, and protecting the item through any desired preservation measures. And what if, as we see so often today, the customer wants to include memorabilia related to the textile? The piece shown here presented these issues to the design team, which addressed them with several approaches. The piece being framed was a Red Cross nurse’s uniform jacket worn during World War II. The owner also had several pieces of memorabilia to accompany her mother’s uniform. It was determined early on that the uniform would be housed in an acrylic box, rather than a deep shadowbox moulding. The fact that the coat would be hanging, rather than mounted to the backing board, caused the designers to focus on maximizing the dimensionality of the design. The acrylic box enables the viewer to see the items from the sides, as well as the front. The box, measuring 34" x 461/2", was constructed at Gemini Moulding/Showcase Acrylics using Evonik Cyro’s ACRYLITE® acrylic sheet. With preservation in mind, UVfiltering acrylic was used. The face of the box has a thickness of by Anne Vazquez WWII framing a nurse’s uniform, 3/16" and the sides utilize sheetmeasuring 1/4" thick. Noting the two thicknesses, Don Berg, vice president, Gemini Moulding, says, “When we bevel the edges of the box, we like to use 1/4" on the sides because you get the full effect of the bevel.” Robert Sullivan, product manager/continuously manufactured sheet at CYRO, also notes, “The thickness of 3/16" for the face was likely used because of the overall size of the front piece. That size in a 1/8" thickness could possibly have some bowing. Acrylic is not as rigid as glass, and larger pieces should be sized to maintain rigidity and structural integrity.” The garment weighs about three pounds, and it was decided that it would be mounted by hanging it onto an acrylic hanger. The hanger was created with 3/8" thick acrylic sheet attached to a clear rod, 1" in diameter. This was a time-saving alternative to stitching the garment to the backing board, or other mounting methods.