The Laboratory of Carpets, Tapestries and Antique Fabrics of Open Care has completed the restoration of 10 dresses of the dancer Charlotte Bachrach, in art Bara (1901-1986), for the Monte Verità museum complex in Ascona, Switzerland.
The ballerina clothes, which had lived with the Monte Verità community in the first decades of the last century, had been exposed to the direct sunlight and warmth of the environments, causing damage to various entities (consumption, gaps, creases, etc.).
Open Care's intervention consisted in the removal of powders with micro-aspirators and brushes; in the vaporization of the clothes to restore softness and hydration to the fibers; in localized cleaning; in sewing consolidation, and finally in protecting the most damaged areas with tulle veils.
It has been also very important the research of the dummies to set up the dresses and to ensure the respect of the conservation parameters.
Furthermore the dummies had to be as faithful as possible to the originals of the first exposition in 1978, during the exhibition “Le mammelle della verità”, created by Harald Szeemann.

The dresses will be exhibited in the Casa Anatta Museum, part of Monte Verità museum complex in Ascona, which will be reopened on May 20th 2017, after architectural restoration, with the repositioning of the exhibition "The Breasts of Truth" by Harald Szeemann in 1978.