Vickers is now working on unboxing items on a weekly basis, because 950 old boxes from the National Museum's storage area can directly harm the contents they are supposed to protect. The old storage boxes are made of acidic materials which, over time, damage textiles. Moreover, clothes and other textiles have been folded and crumpled, and there are too many of them in each box. They are packed so tightly that the fabrics can be damaged by storage.

All the items will now be stored in new, acid-free boxes, with fewer items in each box. – Textiles need space, Vickers explains. – If they're kept in acidic boxes, they turn yellow, and the fabric becomes fragile. It's not just the colours that are affected by acid; the fibres in the fabric can become so brittle that they break.

Look, Munch's baby jacket!

In a large-scale clean-up process, it is not easy to know what's what. Most of the items in the museum’s costume collection are not linked to individuals who might have worn the garments. More is known about materials, trends, cuts, and style periods. How, then, do you know which garments have very special stories? – It can start with two sentences on an old index card. Some are dead ends, and some explode into exciting discoveries, says Janne Arnesen.

The conservators might find an object in one of the boxes that arouses their curiosity or they start with information written down in the past. Munch's baby jacket emerged when Arnesen was looking for baby clothes in old notes and records. – I found something about a hat, a quilted baby hat, bequeatehed to the museum by someone named Inger Munch. Could this be the same Inger who was Edvard Munch's sister? It was, and it turned out that she had donated several garments. – Suddenly, we had the mother's wedding dress, a christening gown, and a large part of the Munch family's wardrobe, Arnesen says.