2B — Thursday, February 19, 2015
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

There’s something undeniably 

alluring about the past. Even in 
our frenzied chase for the future — 
designing computers in our base-
ments and making waves in the 
stock market — we somehow still 
find ourselves stumbling into vin-
tage stores, lingering over dusty 
books and running our fingers 
through moth-eaten velvet. Part of 
it is pure nostalgia, an unshakeable 
longing for the retro, the rustic, the 
renaissance — but no matter if you 
are a multimillionaire or a whim-
sical 20-something, there are no 
flights to ancient Greece or Paris 
circa 1950. Instead, we must learn 
our history through the artifacts 
left behind, dug up and dusted off.

If you are Bill Gates, you may 

spend nearly $31 million on “The 
Codex Leicester,” the most famous 
of Leonardo Da Vinci’s scientific 
manuscripts. Or perhaps you are 
a literature fan like Microsoft 
co-founder Paul Allen, bidding 
$6 million on an original copy of 
Shakespeare’s “First Folio.” Or 
maybe you are just a whimsical 
20-something with an empty wal-
let and a hungry mind, reaching for 
the new and finding the old — as I 
did at the University’s Department 
of Preservation and Conservation 
at the University Library.

If it sounds like the kind of place 

where old Egyptians bring their 
dead to be mummified, you’re not 
too far off base. Instead of preserv-
ing artifacts to be buried, however, 
the University conservators are 
preserving ancient texts, books and 
photos to be brought back to life, 
either for circulation or restricted 
use in University libraries, as well 
as for personal requests. They are 
the 
behind-the-scenes 
wizards 

responsible for making documents 
legible under thick museum glass, 
keeping aged encyclopedias from 
falling apart on the Hatcher Grad-
uate Library shelf and resurrecting 
panoramic photographs of Detroit 
circa 1860.

“This is why we have the cool-

est job in the world,” said Shannon 
Zachary, the head of the depart-
ment of preservation and conserva-
tion, smiling. “We get to do what no 
one else can.”

I arranged to meet Zachary 

at the department lab on a frigid 
morning in early February — the 
hour when the conservators were 
usually the most busy. Despite its 
library affiliation, the lab is fairly 
far from campus, tucked behind 
Elbel Field and the train tracks. As 
I hopped the rusted tracks at sun-
rise, I envisioned myself on the set 
of “National Treasure” — standing 
in a sterile white room, snapped 
into latex gloves and surrounded by 
peeling yellow documents whose 

secrets could be revealed only 
by magniscope. These dramatic 
expectations dissolved quickly as 
I entered the building and wasn’t 
met with a thick FBI-issued vault, 
but rather a homey workshop that 
hummed with the energy of an art 
studio.

It was clearly still early. The 

large wooden work tables were 
mostly empty as I weaved around 
them, making my way to Zachary’s 
office in the back corner. Stretched 
from floor to ceiling of the work-
shop were racks of material rolled 
up like wrapping paper, waiting to 
be sheared off and stitched onto 
battered books. Atop the tables 
were 
extensive 
collections 
of 

exacting knives and massive paper 
cutters, stiff boards and spools of 
thread for book spinal repair and 
an expensive-looking camera with 
a giant bulb. Jutting into the cen-
ter of the room were makeshift 
cubicles designated to each conser-
vator, cluttered with mismatched 
stacks of ragged books and grin-
ning family photos.

A flash of color from one desk 

caught my eye — at least 200 plas-
tic figurines, in varying degrees of 
vibrance and age, peered out from 
the shelf. It was as if I had stepped 
into Santa’s workshop, except the 
toys were not flashy and new and 
looking to be loved — rather, they 
were well-worn and faded, waiting 
to be shined again.

The objects that come to the 

Preservation and Conservation lab 
are divided into two categories: 
circulation and special collections. 
Falling under the circulation group 
are materials sent in for mainte-
nance — specifically damage pre-
vention or damage repair — for 
the primary purpose of extending 
their library shelf lives. The neces-
sary repairs can vary greatly from 
book to book, making the conser-
vators take them on a case-by-case 
basis. Though this attention to 
detail is a trademark of the depart-
ment, with only two full-time book 
repairers and just eight worksta-
tions, it seems impossible to main-
tain every University book without 
some North Pole magic.

“Every repair is handmade from 

start to finish, so we give priority 
to rare and special books, or those 
with spindly and complicated 
bindings,” Zachary said. She then 
picked up a red encyclopedia from 
the table.

“Everything else — standard-

issued books like this, with just a 
little wear and tear — are shipped 

to our friends at a commercial 
binding company in Cleveland, 
Ohio, where they usually repair 
some 35,000 books a year. You can 
understand why we don’t want 
to send our fragile books to that 
assembly line.”

Another reason to keep the book 

in the lab is if there is a specific 
repair requested. Jeff Gilboe, one 
of the two full-time book repairers, 
works primarily with circulation 
materials — books needing damage 
repair and prevention, to be then 
put back on library shelves and into 
students’ hands. He was instructed 
to attach a pocket to the hard-
backed interior of a University bird 
guide, slim enough to fit a book-
mark. He demonstrates his process 
with expert precision: measuring 
the pocket dimensions onto sturdy 
paper, cutting, hinging the paper 
onto the cover flap securely. The 
request seemed strange to me — 
were there secret bookmark pock-
ets all over University materials? I 
asked what other special orders he 
received.

“The library folks love to add 

things to their books,” Gilboe said, 
laughing. “I have replaced pages, 
put in reading supplements and 
refurbished bindings in leather.”

His eyes shone with the passion 

of someone who has been working 
for nine years, yet is still just get-
ting started.

“We have these weekly meet-

ings where new stuff is brought 
in. There’ll be a really damaged 
book and everyone asks, ‘Should 
we commercially rebind it?’” Gil-
boe recounted. “I’ll usually just tell 
them that I can do the whole book.”

The other side of Preservation 

and Conservation, special collec-
tions, is much more private in com-
parison. Materials that fall under 
this category are, naturally, special: 
internationally treasured book col-
lections, valuable manuscripts and 

scores of archival material. The 
Special Collections Library does 
not circulate, but some materials 
can be viewed in the reading room 
on the eighth floor of the Graduate 
Library. And unlike the “Restricted 
Section” of the Hogwarts library — 
which must be snuck into under 
the cover of an invisibility cloak — 
all students are welcome to view 
the special collections, though they 
must request materials ahead of 
time.

Perhaps the most fascinating 

materials in special collections 
are the lengthy, tangled scrolls of 
papyrus, inked with ancient sym-
bols and religious scripture. The 
University currently holds the 
largest papyrological collection in 
North America — roughly 6,500 
linear feet of archival material. The 
collection was first introduced to 
the University in the 1920s, when 
Francis Kelsey, a former profes-
sor of Latin, (for whom the Kelsey 
Museum 
of 
Archaeology 
was 

named) purchased large quanti-
ties of ancient papyri from Egypt, 
much of which is still being held in 
a pressurized vault in the Graduate 
Library. Since then, conservators 
have been arduously working to 
piece together the papyri — a task 
so monumental, so fragile, that 
I’d imagine it would be similar to 
a painter unveiling a masterpiece 
composed completely of pricks of 
his brush.

For Leyla Lau-Lamb, the other 

book repairer, conserving papyrus 
is an art — and she is unquestionably 
a master, albeit an unconventional 
one. Upon first meeting, Lau-Lamb 
struck me as an eccentric genius 
in the flesh: petite and bespeckled, 
long silver hair tied at the nape of 
her neck, wearing an oversized 
sweater emblazoned with a star 
and fuzzy striped tube socks.

“I don’t wear gloves,” Lau-Lamb 

said, when asked to describe her 

process. “People are always sur-
prised, since these are very old and 
fragile documents. But this isn’t a 
visual task; it’s a feeling one. The 
papyrus that comes out of the vault 
doesn’t look like a scroll — it’s more 
like a tangled knot of fibers, not a 
document. I use my fingers to feel 
my way into it, very carefully, dis-
tinguishing between fibers making 
up the vertical and horizontal lay-
ers of the page.”

Lau-Lamb’s 25-year-old meth-

od, though unconventional, works 
— so much so that 10 years ago 
she published a papyrus conserva-
tion guideline for the Advanced 
Papyrological Information Sys-
tem (known as “APIS”) that was 
printed in 25 countries and is still 
actively used. Lau-Lamb laments 
our society’s lack of proper school-
ing in papyrological conservation, 
despite the abundance of archives 
to uncover.

“There are hardly any places to 

study conservation, in today’s soci-
ety and especially back in my day. 
Then, there were two places to go: 
England’s British Library and a 
conservation workshop in Berlin. 
So I went to Berlin for training,” 
Lau-Lamb said.

She then grinned conspiratori-

ally, “What we need is to grab the 
interest of more young people like 
you. Someone needs to keep resur-
recting these old documents.”

To help foster education for bud-

ding conservators, the Preserva-
tion and Conservation Department 
offers the Cathleen A. Baker Fel-
lowship, an annual $10,000 award 
that enables conservators of vary-
ing expertise to work in the lab and 
gain hands-on experience in the 
conservation of paper-based col-
lections. The department receives 
applications 
from 
conservators 

across the country, with each appli-
cant essentially pitching his or her 
project — past Fellows’ projects 
have included broad investigations 
of new conservation techniques, 
as well as the specific use of starch 
paste in book bindings — with the 
ultimate goal of benefitting both 
the Baker Fellow and the Univer-
sity.

This year’s Fellowship was 

awarded to Halaina Demba, whose 
project focus is on library and 
archive conservation. When we 
were introduced, Demba was hold-
ing a thick, faded-blue cookbook 
titled “American Frugal House-
wife,” for which she was recon-
structing a binding. As she flipped 
through the aged pages to show me 

where the sewing in the spine had 
unraveled, I noticed that the pages 
were littered with splotches. I 
asked if she intended to remove the 
stains, figuring that it was common 
practice in paper preservation.

“Definitely not,” Demba replied, 

surprisingly. “Especially in a case 
like this, where the words are 
still clearly legible. These stains 
— mostly oil stains, it looks like — 
are what give a book, particularly a 
cookbook, its character. I’ve found 
little bits of onion stuck to pages, 
and I keep them too.”

I laughed, at once amused and 

slightly disgusted.

“There’s a difference between 

an exhibit and an artifact,” Demba 
continued. “Documents that are 
on exhibit are there to be read — 
people want to know what the U.S. 
Constitution says. Here, we work 
with artifacts. We want them to 
maintain their utility, of course, but 
more importantly we want them to 
maintain their integrity. When you 
wash pages of their oil stains and 
onion bits, you lose this integrity.”

What happens, then, if the pur-

pose of the object is to be looked at? 
Senior conservator Tom Hogarth 
specializes in preserving 19th cen-
tury photographs. Like Lau-Lamb, 
Hogarth beats his own path — 
dressing in a bright yellow Hawai-
ian shirt to offset his shock of white 
hair, he introduces himself as a 
“black-and-white guy.” His current 
project is mounting an 1860 pan-
oramic photo of the Detroit River, 
taken from the Canadian border, to 
an archival board.

Like a sly magician, Hogarth 

pulled back the tissue covering the 
old picture for me, pointing out the 
tiny names of the ships and marvel-
ing at the photographic details that 
were revolutionary for the time 
period.

“Back then, people didn’t have 

smartphones that could take pan-
oramic photos,” Hogarth said, a 
wistful tone in his voice. “They 
took photos shot by shot, then past-
ed them together to make this — it 
took time. It was an art. Nowadays, 
my granddaughter can do it.”

What Hogarth’s granddaugh-

ter can’t do (at least not yet) is 
conserve the original panora-
ma so it lasts forever. In reality, 
only a handful of people in the 
world can do what the staff at the 
Department of Preservation and 
Conservation do — preserve our 
history, close the gap a tiny bit 
more between the past and our 
fast-paced world of fads and for-
getting.

Perhaps our fascination with 

the past can be summed up by this 
question, the one I can’t seem to 
shake: Why does a graying pan-
oramic photograph of Detroit 
bring me to tears, when a mod-
ern version of the same picture 
wouldn’t get a second glance?

VIRGINIA LOZANO/Daily

A repairer works to restore a book at the University Library. 

NYFW: BADGLEY MISCHKA

Inspired by the 1941 film “Blood and Sand,” 

Mark Badgley and James Mischka attempted to 
bring old Hollywood glamour to New York Fash-
ion Week. Beehives and cat eyes walked down the 
runway doused in a varied combination of baroque 
ornamentation and clean silhouettes. Embellished 
details covered half of the line, while bare minimum 
covered the other. The collection was held together 
by a thin thread of inspiration, but fell apart through 
execution.

Despite the overarching “muchness” of the col-

lection, the outerwear pieces shined through. The 
loose red capes and structured tweed coats that 
adorned few of the models’ shoulders were a signifi-
cant highlight, pointing to potential outerwear piec-
es in future collections. A floor-length cream gown 
sparingly decorated with turquoise lace ornament-
ed sleeves stood out as the most successful combina-
tion of minimal and adorned in the entire line. Other 
highlights included an ornate tank top and pant 
combo and a “Mad Men”-style peplum tweed dress.

The idea that a collection could provide more 

than one inspired style is compelling, and with more 
attention to subtle differences rather than overt dis-
parities, the concept could work. Badgley Mischka 
is on to something new, which is exciting and fun to 
see on a runway where taking risks can be precari-
ous (see Kanye West’s Adidas line). Here’s an A-for-
effort on this collection and an encouraging nod in 
the hopes that the duo continues to pursue bold con-
cepts in future collections.

-KATIE CAMPBELL

BADGLEY MISCHKA

NYFW: THOM BROWNE

The Council of Fashion Designers of Ameri-

ca (CFDA) called Thom Browne the Menswear 
Designer of the Year in 2006, arguably the Oscar or 
Palme d’Or of fashion. Then, in 2008, GQ agreed. 
And just in 2013, CFDA decided to throw him 
another. If history should teach us anything, it’s that 
once your accolades need their own room in your 
atelier, you are permitted to take risks – weird ones, 
during Fashion Week. This year, for his F15 Collec-
tion, Browne gave us less a show and more a fune-
real future, one where the living don black and the 
dead white.

In one of the Week’s stranger exhibitions, with 

Nicki Minaj agape in the front row, Browne sent 
his models down the runway with gender-neutral 
black veils over their Burtonesque top hats, tran-
scending the dark into the sinister. High-rise lapels 
barely give the loosened ties breathing room, but 
it allowed for higher flaps and luxe ticket pockets 
that often accentuates a well-crafted suit. With the 
pockets so high (elbows and above), that leaves the 
remaining fabric to drape down uninterrupted to 
near-knee level. If families of Civil War casualties 

had the means — and the Satanism — at that time, 
they might occupy funerals with F15 Browne swag.

And, now, for the weird shit. Breeches, stock-

ings, Chelsea boots, rail-thin umbrellas, no pants at 
all, tapered driving gloves, ankle-length dresses — 
all black and all worn by men. There’s gall in what 
Browne is doing here, yet his nuanced eye erases any 
imagined disrespect he may hold for the dead. Even 
if he manages to upset the departed, they’re still 
dead, and we’re still looking.

-ANDREW MCCLURE

THOM BROWNE

NYFW: BAND OF OUTSIDERS

Scott Sternberg grew up a cinephile, snapping 

pictures and kicking off his professional career as an 
assistant at Creative Artists Agency in Los Angeles. 
After becoming an agent and spending time in fash-
ion circles, namely with J.Crew founder Emily Scott, 
in 2003 he founded Band of Outsiders (the name-
sake taken from Godard’s 1964 film). Not unlike the 
French New Wave cinema that inspires his work, 
Sternberg has found a liminal sweet-spot between 
classics and sex appeal. Peep at his Polaroid cam-
paign with, say, Marisa Tomei, if you want to know 
what I mean — less is more as she reveals almost no 
skin yet exudes allure via Sternberg’s sharp cuts and 
calculated draping.

In January we saw his hardware store-themed 

menswear line, including hunting jackets, slim-cut 
flannels and, uncharacteristic to the designer, denim 
— a denim jumpsuit. This week, for his women’s line, 
he also ventured a bit from his elongating, tapering 
silhouettes, opting for high-slit maxis, oversized-
buttoned cardigans and Pilgrim-belted overcoats. 
He’s not trying to redefine the contours of his ideal 
consumer — nine-feet tall — but more interested in 

well-aged classics spruced up with contemporary, 
if not subtly abstract, detailing. A puffy all-denim 
parka with a coyote fur hood could thrive in the Alps 
or on Fifth Ave., its brighter indigo hue an unequivo-
cal nod to Levi’s before they shacked up with depart-
ment stores.

The best summary piece was a soft-sheen, deep-

navy bustier with matching fine-cut trousers — 
Sternberg’s auto-chic tidiness that expresses what 
everyone wants but with the humility to admit his 
derivations.

-ANDREW MCCLURE

BAND OF OUTSIDERS

NYFW: J. CREW

The typical sequins and party dresses appeared 

in J.Crew’s 2015 ready-to-wear collection, along-
side the less expected tailored onesies and wide 
leg trousers that also came down the runway dur-
ing Tuesday’s show. The J.Crew collection is only 
sold at select stores around the country, so what’s 
shown at Fashion Week is not necessarily what 
you may see at your typical mall.

For the autumn/winter show, though, womens-

wear designer Tom Mora created voluminous wool 
trousers and multi-colored feather minis for a line 
that differs from the traditionally preppy collections 
in the past. However, the clothes are better fit for 
creative director Jenna Lyons rather than an over-
achieving college student.

Bright yellows and blush pinks showed up in 

random pops of fur and luxurious turtlenecks. Geo-
metric designs and stripes in navy and white com-
plemented structured groutfit. Even the denim and 
sequins were revamped into maxi skirts and uncon-
ventional blazers. The coats and jackets were the 
highlight of the show, ranging from dramatic furs to 
patterned double-breasted classics.

Of course, navy sweaters over button-down 

dresses were spread throughout and a clean camel 
coat also popped up. But even the classic pumps and 
sandals featured cheetah print or eye-popping yel-
low tassels.

The collection was not a total standout, but the 

deliberate choice to include dramatic silhouettes 
and unexpected colors was an important move for 
J.Crew. The classic turtleneck has never looked so 
cool.

-MARA MACLEAN

J. CREW

PRESERVATION
From Page 1B

“Every repair is 

handmade.”

“Here, we work 
with artifacts.”

