(light jazz music) - [Jessica] Clothing is made with the intention that it's going to go on the body, it's gonna be worn outside, it might be exposed to weather, you're gonna get it rained it, you're gonna sweat in it.

- There's a corset downstairs that has breast milk stains in it.

Maybe it's blood from a wound.

We're not necessarily pursuing conservation to try and make them look brand new.

We're not trying to bleach away signs of life and return them to the shop window state.

Conservation can look like really coming to understand and appreciate a stain, rather than pulling it off a textile.

(light jazz music continues) (gentle music) - Here at the RISD museum, we have a costume and textile collection that numbers about 35,000 objects.

(upbeat music) We like to say that we cover all of the world and all of time.

(upbeat music continues) We have pieces that date from 1500 BCE, and there are pieces that are being made for us today.

(upbeat music continues) People who come into museums often see the beautiful exhibition with the pristine objects on view.

What they're not necessarily seeing is all of the work that happens below ground.

We are looking at these pieces carefully.

We're making sure that they're stored properly.

We're bringing them out to study.

(upbeat music continues) I'm Kate Irwin.

I am curator of costume and textiles.

- It's beautiful.

- Yeah.

It's definitely lived a life.

See all of the discoloration, the staining.

- The part of conservation that I enjoy the most is coming to understand how something was made and coming to really gain appreciation for the amount of time and the skill of a maker.

- Wow, that's so much stiffer than I expected it to be.

- Yeah.

A big part of this process was figuring out ways to talk about how things just naturally grow and evolve and change.

(upbeat music continues) That's what it tells.

My name is Anna Rose Keefe, and I am the assistant conservator of costume and textiles.

(upbeat music continues) - There is also sort of a different and more abstract part of our job, where we're really using our work to engage students.

Whether that's just thinking about the nature of conservation work or when you intervene and when you don't, or thinking about the context of a piece.

I'm Jess Urick, and I am associate conservator of costume and textiles.

(no sound) (light music) - There is an assumption that something goes to the museum and it will just stay the way it is in perpetuity.

And that's just not a reality.

There are certain pieces that are going to just age no matter what.

And they weren't made to last forever, and they, therefore, will not last forever.

We've really decided to kind of embrace that.

(light music continues) - I don't see a lot of thread trails.

I don't see a lotta clues.

- No.

- We can't tell the stories that we had hoped that we could tell with these items anymore.

So if they're just sitting in the dark and they're falling apart, then we have to make a decision.

What is healthy for the collection right now is to present them for a formal deaccession.

That is a formal removal from the museum collection.

(light music continues) (no audio) (bright music) (bright music continues) - Because we have this relationship with RISD, we can kind of pan out and think a little more critically about what the end of life could look like for a museum object.

(no audio) (dramatic piano music) - We programmed a course and exhibition called "Inherent Vice," where we were able to bring students into our collection, (dramatic piano music continues) provide them with materials that had been deaccessioned from the RISD museum, and allow them to turn these pieces into new works of art that then went on display in the museum again.

- Working with students in this way in "Inherent Vice" is really pushing the boundaries of all of our work in the museum in the best of ways.

(upbeat music) It was certainly a far reach to propose that students not only handle and work with and really explore, but then to actually pull them apart and to remake them into something else is really next-level.

(light piano music) (no audio) - We brought the dresses into the class, and it was like a school dance.

And everyone was awkward along the walls at first, because there's this, it's a palpable aura around museum objects, where initially everyone was kind of afraid to touch and was sneaking up on them and looking at us and saying, "Are you sure it's okay?"

And it was really fun to watch that evolve over the course of the class, to then, they're wearing them out in the city and they're like, "Get these stinky things off of me," and.

(upbeat music) Conservators are so often tasked as the sort of do-not-touch people, and we felt so powerfully that there has to be a way to bridge that gap and break that artificial barrier.

(upbeat music continues) (fabric whooshing) - RISD students are makers.

It's a bomber jacket that's made out of the lining of a wedding dress.

- They feel a real kinship with the people who made these objects, even if we've lost their names.

(light music) - The skirt of this wedding suit, as Christopher is calling it.

(dramatic brass music) (dramatic brass music continues) (no audio) There's energy that's being put into all of these makers' efforts that were not recognized by anybody, including the museum, up until, you know, very recent years.

- These pieces have been more deeply considered than they ever would have been before.

(light jazz music) (light jazz music continues) - Building all those connections that are gonna last beyond the scope of this exhibition, I see it so much more as a beginning than an ending.

(light jazz music continues) (no audio) (screen hissing) - [Narrator] If you want to know what's going on, (mysterious music) (upbeat rhythmic music) (birds chirping) (audience applauding) (screen hissing) (upbeat rhythmic music continues) (no audio) (screen hissing)