The responses to my January post on storage issues facing museums with costume collections, were both interesting and insightful. It seems that even more institutions are preparing to move their collections than I had originally anticipated. It became clear, however that a discussion of museum deaccessioning policies was needed (deaccessioning is regularly a part of pre-move collection evaluation). As Lauren mentioned on Monday, many have received notice that Augusta Auctions would be hosting a large auction of items deaccessioned from several reputable museums, including the Brooklyn Museum’s Costume Collections (Auction preview in New York is March 23rd, and the sale is the following day).
Deaccesioned: Printed Lame Opera Cape, Mid-1920s (Augusta Auctions)
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term “De-accession” did not appear in the English language until the early 1970s.
De-accession:
“trans. To remove an entry for (an exhibit, book) from the accessions register of a museum, library, etc., usu. in order to sell the item concerned. Also absol.
1972 N.Y. Times 27 Feb. II. 21/2 The Museum of Art recently de-accessioned (the polite term for ‘sold’) one of its only four Redons. 1973 Time 26 Feb. 43/2 ‘De-accessioning’ pictures the barbaric museum jargon for preparing to sell. 1974 J. GOLDMAN Man from Greek & Roman v. 33 You deaccessioned, you took something off your shelves and sold it. 1981 Times 16 Feb. 4/1 The sale of Japanese art included a group of 38 lots of Japanese lacquer ‘recently de-accessioned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York’. 1987 London Rev. Bks. 19 Mar. 5/4 Curators may soon be tempted to start..‘de-accessioning’ what their recent predecessors have..acquired.
Hence as n., the act or process of de-accessioning; de-ac cessioned ppl. a., de-ac cessioning vbl. n.
1973 Newsweek 29 Jan. 76 Richard F. Brown, director of Fort Worth’s Kimbell Museum of Art, felt that..the ‘principle’ of de-accession is right although he might ‘disagree with the particular object chosen for de-accession’. 1973 Art in Amer. Jan.-Feb. 24 In order to illustrate..Mr. Hoving’s policy, he should show all the de-accessioned works. 1973 New Yorker 31 Mar. 83/1 Money gained through sales or ‘de-accessioning’, in museum parlance is often used for acquisitions. 1976 Times Lit. Suppl. 24 Dec. 1604/2 The acquisition by Mellon from the Hermitage of famous paintings… This early twentieth-century instance of sensational ‘de-accessioning’ as it was to be uneuphoniously called by later adepts of the technique.”
Obviously, there is controversy tied up in the notion of a museum vetting its collection. One of the best ways to combat controversy is to have a clear and transparent accession and de-accessioning policy. Whenever money exchanges hands, legal issues arise, and should be considered as well. As with previous posts, my intention here is to provide readers with resources for further research.
Deaccesioned: Embroidered Blue Silk Chinese Export Shawl, Early 20th Cent (Augusta Auctions)
A good discussion of the ethical and budgetary issues associated with de-accessioning are discussed in this article from the San Jose History Association. They outline some key criteria involved when evaluating an object:
“the object is not relevant to the museum’s mission,
the object has deteriorated beyond usefulness,
the object is hazardous to other collections or staff,
there are multiple examples of the same object in the collection, and
the object is wrongly attributed or fake.”
Example policies can be found by joining the Museum Documents Listserve, along with other useful policies regularly set by museums. An article by Derek Fincham, of Layolla University College of Law, titled “Deaccession of Art and the Public Trust” outlines many of the legal aspects of de-accessioning (but be warned, it is 54 pages long). The National Parks Service discusses it’s policy on Deaccesioning in Volume II of its Museum Handbook. Other resources include a number of books, articles and thesis projects. None of these, however, seems to directly address specific issues relevant to costume and textile collections.
Deaccesioned: Two Pair D'Orsay Evening Shoes, 1920-1930 (Augusta Auctions)
For those currently involved in the deaccessioning/moving process, consider these questions (I encourage you to respond to any in the comments below):
What do you think is the best way to prevent controversy and ethical dilemma’s with respect to de-accessioning?
What is your institutions policy? How does it relate to your museums mission and collection policy?
How often do you de-accession? What is your process for decision-making?
What departments/professions are involved in the decision-making process?
Whom do you notify when de-accessioning?
Do you keep records of items that you have de-accessioned? What sorts of information do you keep?
How does ‘budget’ play into the decision to de-accession an object?
If private individuals purchase the objects, are they given any provenance records? Are they told of any potential contamination? (or are contaminated articles disposed of differently?)
What special concerns apply to de-accessioning articles of dress?
Are employees of the given institution permitted to purchase (or otherwise obtain) de-accessioned items?
What else do you think is important for the Museum community to consider? What do you feel the general public should know?
Coming soon is the Augusta Auction Company’s latest antique and vintage clothing and textiles auction. Preview in New York City on Friday, March 23rd and Saturday, March 24th. Auction starts at 12 noon March 24th. If you can not be in New York City for the auction, despair not!Absentee, phone, and internet bidswill be accepted. Nearly 400 catalogued lots, this auction is especially interesting as its contents are consignments from a number of prominent American museums, including: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection,Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, Chrysler Museum (Virginia), Montclair ArtMuseum (New Jersey), and the National Heritage Museum (Massachusetts).
Two Mainboche Lamé Dresses
The sale features antique clothing, accessories, Asian & middle Eastern garments & textiles, rugs, tapestries, lace, ecclesiastical objects, and more from the 15th to 20th centuries. If you visit the Augusta Auction Company web site, you can view online galleries of consigned items, with more to be posted over the next few weeks. The auction catalog is schedule to be posted online March 10th.
The following information comes from an email sent by the auction company:
Lots to be sold include rare textiles and clothing objects from the 15th Century right up to the 1990’s, including…designs from many of the top fashion names of the twentieth century – Elizabeth Hawes, Bonnie Cashin, Halston, Claire McCardell, Chanel, Ferragamo, Mainbocher, Phillip Hulitar, Sarmi, Stavropoulos, Galanos, Elizabeth Arden, Rudi Gernreich, Eta Hentz, Pierre Cardin, Balenciaga, Zandra Rhodes, Geoffrey Beene, Lilly Dache, Gucci and many others.
Rose Pink Evening Gown, 1910
If you are at all like me (and I suspect you may be, if only a tiny bit, since you are reading Worn Through), you have already asked yourself, “Why are museum pieces up for auction?”
Taken from the Augusta Auction Company web site, here is the explanation, really quite simple:
Garments and textiles offered for sale from most of the museum collections include pieces that no longer fit the criteria of the museums’ collections policies, duplicate other pieces in their collections, or are pieces that are no longer exhibited. Many have been in museum storage for decades. All are new to market and have not previously been offered for sale. The museum collections are sold to the highest bidder, free of any minimum bids or auction reserves. Proceeds from auction attendees’ purchases go directly to the museums’ acquisitions funds or to support their conservation efforts.
See? You can add a treasure to your own collection, and feel good about doing so, knowing that the proceeds from your purchases go directly towards supporting the museums.
Here are a few more of the promised highlights of the March 24th sale:
Featured items include 1940’s posters from Charles James, donated by the designer to the Brooklyn Museum, a c. 1750 Chien-Lung Imperial palace hanging, a 15th C tapestry of Roman Soldiers, a 1770 dated Aubusson tapestry, a large 19th C. Meiji embroidery depicting mythical beasts, hand-woven and embroidered shawls, 16th & 17th C. ecclesiastical textiles & silk brocades, other early European embroideries, Victorian through late 20th C garments, shoes, hats, 19th C beaded purses & 20th C pocketbooks, silk lingerie and so much more.
Even if you do not plan to bid, if you are a collector it can be useful to check the results of this auction, as they can help you to determine the current market value of any similar pieces in your own collection (although, bear in mind that the museum provenenance adds to the value of these auction items), or even the potential auction price of a special something for which you have been searching and saving up.
To tempt you, below are some examples from the online gallery.
Elizabeth Hawes Evening Gown, 1945
Embroidered Chinese Export Robe, early 20th century
Orange and Gold Stavropoulos Evening Ensemble, 1982
As some may recall, I attended a special conference given by Seb Chan of the Powerhouse museum in September of 2009. While writing the post for that issue of Worn Through, I came across “The Australian Dress Register” that the Powerhouse was developing, which aims to “assist museums and private collectors to recognize and research their dress collections and support better care and management.” Fascinated by this idea, I kept it in the back of my head. Several months later, while trolling Twitter, I came to know Rebecca Evans, an assistant registrar for the Powerhouse and a new scholar in dress. After some discussion, I asked her if she might be able to give readers of WT some insider information on the Australian Dress Register – and she agreed!
I’m pleased to present this ’sneak peak’ into the future of museum collections and their uses:
The Australian Dress Register is an inventive new project from the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney which aims to document provenanced historical dress. It is an online database that records information including:
measurements,
cut,
fabric,
photographs,
condition,
history and
provenance.
The project has two main aims;
to document men, women and children’s costume and
to assist museums and private collectors in recognizing the importance of dress in communicating history.
This is a comprehensive approach to recording and documenting some of the outstanding examples of costume in collections in the state of News South Wales. The project also provides many help notes focused on supporting the conservation of these examples of dress. We hope that the Dress Register will encourage collectors to consider their collections very broadly and preserve and share what they know about people, their dress and life in the past.
[Examples of the helpful information the project hopes to help provide is detailed instruction on this resources page, it also includes a series of instructional video how-to's including storage and measuring techniques, such as this one below]
I’ve been working on the project for about a year now and one of my favorite aspects of the register is its documentation of garment measurements. From a scientific point of view it is insightful to see how the shape of people’s bodies has changed over time, especially the circumference of women’s waists and peoples height. Silhouettes have dramatically altered over time, whether the width between shoulder seams, different lengths between the back and front of skirts or the length of a trouser – this information is useful for researchers, practitioners and industry leaders. One of the garments on the register from the 1840s, worn by a woman who had had four children, has a waist circumference of only 60 cm! This suggests the wearer was tightly corseted.
The project allows for the possibility to link similar examples of dress together, even though they are hundreds of kilometers away from one another. One of the best finds so far is linking a dress from the Powerhouse Museums’s collection and a skirt from the Tongarra Museum, both from the mid-1840s. The skirts in both of these examples have virtually the same construction with five, bias-cut strips down the centre front and distinctive plaid silk taffeta fabrics. These examples were made on opposite sides of Australia, one in Tasmania and other in New South Wales, one probably by a professional and the other by the owner. This tells us a lot about dressmaking practices of this period as well as generally what was in fashion.
Detail of check skirt, c.1845, The Tongarra Museum, Photography by Rebecca Evans
The Australian Dress Register will be officially launched as a public website in mid-2010. We have much to work to do till then but I am sure that it will prove to be a fantastic resource. I hope that it will be useful to people in the museum industry, academics, designers, scientists, home sewers, students and many more. I am constantly surprised and awed by historic dress and its ability to reveal history and describe its wearer.
I want to extend a very warm thank you to Rebecca for this insightful post. Be sure to check out the resources page for a selection of instructional videos and pdfs available from the powerhouse/dress register. Are there other institutions out there working on similar initiatives or projects? How is your institution making use of new technology, making collections more useful and accessible to its patrons? As a museum visitor, do you have suggestions or ideas for ways museums might better promote/utilize/connect collections across borders? Comments welcome below!
1960s Aloha Shirt from the University of Hawai'i Museum
Here is a funding opportunity for my fellow academics in the US, the Costume Society of America’s College and University Collection Care Grant
Description
The $1500 College and University Collection Care Grant is intended to assist with the care, maintenance, preservation, and instructional missions of a college or university collection that is not eligible for a Small Museum Collection Care Grant.
Purpose
The College and University Collection Care Grant is intended to assist the costume and textiles collection of a college or university that receives little or no financial support from its institution. Funding may be used to support the care, conservation, and/or instructional mission of a collection of historic, period, or otherwise informative costume and textiles that are intended for preservation and are used for study by an institution that has a degree program in apparel, textiles, or theatre.
University of Hawai'i Museum
Eligibility
Institutions applying for a Grant must meet the following requirements:
be a degree granting institution
have a degree program in apparel, textiles, or theatre
The institution must legally own the collection; it cannot be a private collection housed in a college/university.
provide institutional support for the collection. duties include the care and maintenance of the collection.
provide institutional endorsement of the collection by some expression of commitment, such as, exhibition space, insurance, storage, or time invested in the care and management of the collection
to accept the Grant, the chosen institution must become an Institutional Member of CSA
The collection seeking assistance must:
consist of dress, textiles, and related objects (published materials, textile production tools/equipment, etc.)
be legally owned by the institution applying for the Grant (not a private collection housed in a college/university)
be intended for preservation
Selection Criteria
Applications will be judged by:
high impact of the project on collection’s well-being and mission
feasibility of the project in terms of budget, time line, and personnel to carry it out
significance of the collection to the academic unit
Application Deadline
Completed applications must be postmarked by February 28.
Application Procedure
Complete the application, and send five copies, together with any relevant documentation and supporting material, to:
Chair, College and University Collection Care Grant
The Costume Society of America
390 Amwell Road, Suite 403
Hillsborough, NJ, USA 08844
Further details may be found at the Costume Society’s web site.
In the first portion of this discussion, I took a look at why a collection might need to rehouse or move its collection, and provided some basic resources that could be utilized for determining the best course of action for such collections. In this installment, and several subsequent postings, I’ll provide the transcripts of some (very) brief interviews I held with a number of curator/managers who have either been or are still in this position. I asked Christina Johnson of the FIDM Museum to provide some background information on her experience with rehousing the Rudi Gernrich collection:
The FIDM Museum was organized as a non-profit foundation in 1978 to provide a research facility of garments, accessories, and visual materials for students, researchers, designers, and the public. Throughout the years, the collection has been stored in various rooms within the Los Angeles campus sites of the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, a private college.
FIDM’s current and permanent campus in downtown Los Angeles was built in 1990, and the collection was moved into two rooms there at that time. By 2000, the collection was distributed between three temperature and humidity-controlled rooms and had outgrown its designated space. Rooms contained poles for hanging storage with open shelves on top. The largest room was devoted to the Permanent Collection (1,445 square feet) and held approximately 8,000 items. Another room (515 square feet) contained 2,000 pieces including our Rudi Gernreich Archive and pieces waiting to be photographed for our database. Our Study Collection was stored in a room within our office suite (313 square feet). We also stored acquisitions that needed to be cataloged in our offices.
FIDM Museum storage before Compact Storage installation, 2007
Petticoats before archival hangers, FIDM Museum, 2006
We had done a great deal of collections management before designing our new space. In 2003, accessories were still stored on open shelves and there was a great deal of dust. Over 5 years, standard box sizes were purchased to re-house all accessories. Hanging garments were transferred from wire and wooden hangers to padded archival hangers. We had to start storing new acquisitions on rolling racks within our permanent rows because of lack of space. Boxes were stored on the floor and objects would easily be damaged by a flood.
We acquired a 2,000 piece archive of Gianni Versace menswear in 2006 which would not fit in storage. It was readily apparent we needed more space but would not be given an additional room so we were approved by FIDM administration to design compact storage. We stored the Versace collection offsite until it could be moved into our new storage. We worked with Paul Jemelita at Compact Storage to design banks that would hold hanging and boxed items. Compact storage is a series of rolling metal banks which move to create a single, adjustable aisle. We spoke with other museum employees with this type of storage to see what they liked and what they would change about their own systems. We also visited one museum with compact storage.
Compact storage was installed room by room in 2008. We started with the largest room. A temporary storage room was constructed within the FIDM Galleries on the ground floor. An issue with the paint used on the walls quickly arose. Museum staff was concerned about garments touching the painted surface and possible off-gassing but because of time constraints, we had to move the collection. We stapled washed muslin to all walls to protect the garments as best as possible. Our staff of 5 moved the entire Permanent Collection (located on the third floor) in 4 days. We worked in pairs and used racks covered with tyvek for the hanging garments and carts for the boxed items. The collection was moved and temporarily stored in the order in which it is permanently stored, so it could be put back the same way. After compact storage was installed (which took two months per room), we cleaned (wiped down all banks, mopped floors) and moved the collection back. This process was done for each of our three storage rooms.
Versace Menswear Archive being moved into Compact Storage, 2009, FIDM Museum
Installation of Compact Storage, FIDM Museum
Meghan Grossman Hansen, FIDM Registrar, moving Museum Permanent Collection into compact storage, 2008
Moving a collection was a great deal of physical work. It was constant moving eight hours a day. Some of us chose to start at 6 am to avoid bumping into students. We also had to stop between passing periods, because the halls and freight elevator get crowded. We chose to move the collection in parts, room by room, because we could store things in our Galleries onsite. We could have moved and installed compact storage in all three storage rooms at once, but that would have entailed moving all objects offsite, to a larger room than what was available in our Galleries. We were lucky in that we did not have to “pack” garments for offsite transport. They were simply hung on poles or moved in their original box down the hall, in the elevator, down another hall, and into our Galleries.
Boxed garment storage, FIDM Museum
Nineteenth century garments in Compact Storage, FIDM Museum, 2010
Some garments which were strong enough to hang on old stationary poles were not strong enough to hang on the poles within the new compact storage banks. Garments in this type of storage do sway back and forth a bit. These delicate hanging garments were placed in boxes after being moved. After being housed in new storage, the Collections Manager checked each garment for damage and to make sure it was in the correct order. The new storage banks are not made with covers so a Museum intern is making magnetized covers of ripstop nylon to protect the collection from light, dust, and possible water leaks.
I want to extend a huge thank you to Christina for providing such a helpful and detailed narrative of her experience with moving a collection into new storage, for providing useful information on vendors, and on how she and her team managed to execute this move all while avoiding crowded, student-filled hallways. Stay tuned for the next “installation.”
Christina Johnson, Associate Curator-Collections Manager, FIDM Museum, Image Courtesy Berliner Studio/ BEImages
* Petticoats after archival hangers, FIDM Museum, 2006
Museums regularly face issues associated with a lack of space for their collections. As new acquisitions are made, space must be found to store these new objects. For many museum clothing collections, this can be an especially tricky problem. A number of options are regularly used: Offsite storage, a new building, compact storage (just to name a few). Most memorable in recent history is the Brooklyn Museum’s decision to transfer its entire costume collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The result of this move is the forthcoming major retrospective exhibition: American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity which will be composed entirely from the “newly established Brooklyn Museum of Costume Collection at the Met.”
But taking a step back, what does one need to consider when moving a collection, en mass? For those interested in careers within collection management, this is an issue one would have to face with some regularity. And so I thought examining a few resources and examples would be helpful for readers of Worn Through.
Some good general resources for handling collections are:
I asked some experts in the field who have had some recent experience with this and plan to share my discoveries with WT readers over a series of posts. Christina Johnson, of FIDM was one of these experts and she’ll be enlightening us on her recent experience with moving her collection of Gernrich’s in to compact storage. The Oakland Museum of California is also in the middle of a similar process, and they are blogging about the transformation of their history galleries here. Both the de Young Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Arts have recently acquired new buildings, however, Philadelphia’s move was specific to the Costume and Textile collection.
Hanging costume in old storage
Hanging costume in new storage
According to their website, this move was executed in January 2008, and involved some 30,000 pieces of costume and textiles. It took eight years of planning, with funding obtained from an IMLS grant, Mellon Foundation and the Kress Foundation. Details on the Museum’s historic move are available to the public and academic community here: Costume & Textile Department Move
The website includes an overview, and details on the storage survey, design process, rehousing and the move itself. The site is heavy with photographs, video and architectural drawings.
Part of the “Storage Survey”
“Ideal storage”
From “details on mount making”
Another museum professional recommended checking out the American Institute of Conservation’s website. Here I found a whole range of papers from their last meeting, but several specifically addressed this issue, including:
“New Lab Space, New de Young” by Sarah Gates, Head of Textile Conservation, and Beth Szuhay, Textile Conservator, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, de Young Museum
“Out of the Box: New Costume and Textile Storage at the Philadelphia Museum of Art” by Sara Reiter, Conservator of Costume and Textiles, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Linda Gottfried, Director of Museum Products, Borroughs Corporation
Their next meeting is May 11, 2010, and will be held in Milwaukee. Details here.
Finally, I hope you’ll comment below on experiences you’ve had with moving a museum collection, and keep an eye out here for more on this topic in the coming months.
As some may remember, this past December I traveled from California to Philadelphia for the American Anthropology Association conference. While there, I spent an afternoon exploring the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Museum had a lot to offer those interested in historical clothing. Not only were there a number of special exhibitions to tempt viewers, but its permanent exhibitions held a number of examples as well.
Portrait of a Lady and Her Child, c. 1625 by Jan Anthonisz. van Ravesteyn (Dutch)
When I arrived at the museum, the first special exhibition I came upon was “Wrought and Crafted: Jewelry & Metalwork 1900 to the Present” ending February 7, 2010 (Curated by Elisabeth Agro). Philadelphia’s history is strongly tied to the history of metalworking, though the majority of this exhibition offers more contemporary examples. The exhibition also has a nice online feature, whereby visitors can leave comments if they’ve seen it in person.
Torque, 1972. Gilded SIlver and Polyester. By Stanley Lichtzin.
Brooch, 2007. Silver and Topaz. By Georg Dobler
“An Enduring Motif: The Pomegranate in Textiles” ending February 21, 2010 (Curated by Dilys Blum) was the next exhibition on my trek through this marvelous museum. This small, but well executed exhibition provides a brief and beautiful history of the cultural significance of the pomegranate in textiles (not only their image, but also the use of the plant). It includes objects from as early as as the 15th Century (a silk velvet chausable dating to 1450) through the 20th Century (a Jack Lenor Larsen piece of hand-painted fabric from the 1970s). Examples are from various countries including, Uzbekistan, France, Spain, Turkey, Italy, and the United States. Techniques such as ikat (resist-dye), block-printing, needlepoint lace, lampas weave, and embroidery are also represented.
selection from Fragment, c. 1760. Block-prnted cotton plain weave, Bourger, France
Boarder, c.1650-75. Linen; needlepoint lace, Made in Italy (Venice)
Quilt Facing, 17th-19th Century (Ottoman), Linen plain weave wilk silk embroidery in surface darning stitch, Made in Turkey.
"Pomegranate" Fabric From the Afghan Colletion, 1974, Hand-printed silk plain weave Designed by Jack Lenor Larsen, Made by Jim Thompson Thai Silk Company
“Inspiring Fashion: Gifts from Designers Honoring Tom Marotta” ending Summer 2010 (Curated by Kristina Haugland) is presented in the new Perelman Building. This exhibition is also small, but very focused. It presents designs from 17 designers, in honor of the late Tom Marotta, a retail executive at Saks Fifth Avenue who was much respected in the industry. The garments on display here were obtained directly from the designers for the museums permanent collection. The exhibition includes a video of interviews with each of the designers to offer insights into the pieces, and their relationships with Marotta.
Tom Marotta
An overview of the exhibition
Carolina Herrera gown
Zac Posen, 2009 gown
Finally, “Horse and Man Armors” curated by Pierre Terjanian (ongoing) was a welcome new distraction from what I might readily consider fashion history. As I walked in to the Arms and Armor gallery the connection between fashion and armor suddenly dawned on me. The Metropolitan Museum of art has an in-depth article on the connections between armor as it relates to historical styles and trends, and an article by Stephen V. Grancsay from the 1930s traces these connections more specifically. The most recent writing on fashion and armor, comes from Ruel A. Macaraeg, “Dressed to Kill: Toward a Theory of Fashion in Arms and Armor” published in Fashion Theory, March 2007 (Berg), though the focus of this article is more on arms specifically.
Armor for the Field c.1520 (Germany)
Cuirassier Armor, 1612 (Italy or France)
But while standing agog in these galleries, amazed at the craftsmanship, it occurred to me that current designers often use armor and military concepts to inspire and design their creations. Thierry Mugler, Gareth Pugh, and a number of others seem fascinated with the idea of an armored female figure (see Tove’s post yesterday on Lady Gaga’s armored exoskeleton).
From the Armored body section of the Superheroes exhibition at the MET, CI
Most memorable in my mind, however, is the work of costume designer Eiko Ishioka (her films include Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Fall, and The Cell). Her use of armor-like designs for modern and futuristic fantasy films can’t help but influence fashion designers in their work.
In the spirit of inspiration to designers and historians alike, I have these additional images from the arms and armor galleries at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to share:
Kneeling Knight in Prayer, C. 1470 Southern Germany.
Boy's Armor, 1500-1540 (Germany)
Hauberk (shirt) of Mail c. 1600 (Persia, now Iran)
Hauberk (shirt) of Mail for Ceremonial use c. 1550-1600 (Transylvania now Romania)
from the American Association of Museums.
