Destroyed Edwardian Coat

Early 20th-century Edwardian coat, preserved in heavily worn, unrestored condition.

Category: Curated

File Under: #EdwardianDress, #MaterialDecay, #HistoricalGarment

Description

Early 20th-century Edwardian coat, dating to the early 1900s, acquired in a state of advanced wear and left unrestored. The garment retains the structural markers of the period—shaped shoulder, defined waist, flared back, and self-fabric button closures—while its surface records extensive age-related deterioration.

The lining is frayed and partially absent, inner canvas is exposed, and the collar shows tearing consistent with long-term use, storage, and handling. No repairs or stabilizing interventions have been made. The condition reflects the passage of time rather than alteration.

Garments of this type are often encountered either conserved or reproduced; this example remains neither. Its present state places it adjacent to later fashion practices that treated decay, exposure, and structural failure as formal qualities—approaches explored decades later by figures such as Rei Kawakubo, Martin Margiela, Ann Demeulemeester, and Alexander McQueen—though here they appear without authorship or intent.

The coat stands as a historical garment whose material condition has shifted its reading over time, from functional dress to object defined by survival and loss.