Vestment Care: Washing, Pressing, Storing and Repair

How to care for vestments comes down to four judgements made before you touch anything: what the fibre is, how the garment is built, whether the ornament is woven in or applied on top, and whether the piece could be replaced if you ruin it. Altar linens, amices and plain cotton or polyester albs wash at home. A lined and interlined chasuble with couched metal thread does not — not in a machine, not in a sink, and often not at a high-street dry cleaner either. This guide sets out what each cloth tolerates, how to press and store it, how to keep moth and mildew out of a cold stone building, and when to stop and call a textile conservator.

First, work out what you are holding

Three questions decide almost every care decision.

1. Is it a single layer or a made-up garment? An alb, surplice, amice, purificator or corporal is essentially one cloth, hemmed. A chasuble, cope, dalmatic or stole is a face cloth, an interlining and a lining, assembled so the three layers hang as one. Single layers can be wetted. Assembled garments shrink at different rates in each layer, and a wetted chasuble comes out puckered along every seam.
2. Is the decoration woven or applied? A damask or brocade pattern is woven into the cloth and moves with it. Appliqué orphreys, couched gold, bullion, beads and glued-on trims are applied, and each has its own tolerance for water, heat and solvent.
3. Could you replace it? A polyester alb is a consumable. A hand-embroidered set given in memory of someone in 1912 is not. Treat the irreplaceable piece conservatively even when a bolder method would probably work.

If you are unsure what a garment is called or which pieces belong together, the vestment glossary gives the names; here we are only concerned with what each one survives.

What can and cannot be laundered at home

Test every method on a hidden seam allowance or the inside of a hem first — wet a cotton bud, press it against the cloth for ten seconds, and look at the bud for dye. If colour transfers, stop.

Altar linens

Purificators, corporals, palls and lavabo towels are washed constantly and are meant to be. In Roman Catholic practice, linens that have been in contact with the Blessed Sacrament are given a first rinse whose water goes to the sacrarium before ordinary laundering; the General Instruction of the Roman Missal at no. 334 keeps the practice of building a sacrarium in the sacristy for exactly this water. Anglican and Lutheran parishes vary; many keep the same custom, some do not.

After that rinse: cold or 30°C wash, non-biological detergent, no fabric conditioner, no chlorine bleach. Wine on linen wants attention before washing rather than a hotter wash afterwards — see getting wine, wax and oil out of cloth. Line dry or tumble on low and press while faintly damp.

Albs, surplices, cottas and amices

Cotton and linen albs wash at 40°C and can go to 60°C if the cloth is sound and undyed, though repeated hot washing yellows linen over years. Polyester and poly-cotton albs wash at 30–40°C and must not be tumble-dried hot: polyester takes a permanent crease at temperatures a cotton programme reaches easily. Lace-edged cottas and lace-trimmed albs go in a mesh bag on a delicate cycle, or better, are washed by hand.

Chasubles, copes, dalmatics, stoles and burses

As a rule, no. Not in water. The exception is a genuinely unlined, single-layer polyester chasuble of the kind sold for camps and hospital chaplaincy — those are usually machine washable at 30°C and say so on the label. Everything else is a construction of face cloth, interlining and lining, and immersion is how you turn a flat garment into a rippled one.

What goes straight to a conservator

• Bullion, goldwork and any raised metal-thread embroidery.
• Antique or memorial pieces, anything pre-1940, anything with a dedication.
• Silk that is shattering — splitting along the weave in fine parallel cracks. Weighted silk from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries does this and no cleaning will stop it.
• Anything already torn under strain, where cleaning would enlarge the tear.

Care by fibre and construction

Cloth or feature	Wash at home?	Method	Iron	Chief risk
Linen — altar linens, amices, fine albs	Yes	30–60°C, non-bio, no conditioner	Hot, damp, 200°C	Yellowing from repeated hot washes; scorch if dry-ironed
Cotton — albs, surplices, cottas	Yes	40°C, mesh bag if lace-trimmed	Hot, damp, 200°C	Shrinkage on first wash; grey cast from mixed loads
Polyester / poly-cotton albs	Yes	30–40°C, cool tumble or drip dry	Cool, 110°C, cloth	Heat-set creases that will not come out; glazing under a hot iron
Wool and wool-blend chasubles, copes, choir cassocks	No	Brush, air, spot-treat; specialist clean rarely	Steam only, from the reverse	Felting if wetted; moth
Silk dupioni and silk damask	No	Air and spot-test only	150°C max, dry cloth, reverse	Water marks that dry as visible rings; light fading
Rayon/viscose damask	No	Specialist clean	Cool, dry cloth	Loses strength when wet; shrinks badly
Metallic and lamé grounds	No	Surface dust only, soft brush	Never directly	Metallised film melts and dulls under heat
Applied metal thread, goldwork, bullion	No	Conservator	Never	Tarnish, crushed purl, solvent stripping the core thread
Interlined / canvas-fronted chasubles	No	Specialist clean, tested first	Steam from reverse only	Fusible interfacing bubbling in solvent or under heat
Cotton or nylon lace edging	Hand only	Cool hand wash, dry flat	Never directly; press around it	Snagging; nylon melts at a linen setting

Which cloth your set is actually made of is worth establishing before the first clean, because a great many “silk” chasubles in parish cupboards are polyester and a great many “gold” ones are metallised film.

Dry cleaning: real risks, not imaginary ones

Dry cleaning is not gentle. It is a wash in solvent — usually perchloroethylene — with mechanical tumbling and heat, and the Canadian Conservation Institute’s guidance on commercial dry cleaning of museum textiles is blunt that only sturdy pieces should go near it. Where it goes wrong on vestments:

• Metal thread. Solvent plus tumbling abrades the metal wrapping off the silk or cotton core it is wound around. What comes back looks tired rather than clean, and the loss is not recoverable. Goldwork and bullion should not be commercially dry cleaned.
• Fusible interfacings. Many chasubles made since about 1970 use a heat-bonded interfacing. Solvent softens the adhesive and heat finishes the job; the face cloth then bubbles away from the interlining in patches. There is no reliable home fix.
• Applied trims and glued braid. Anything held on with adhesive rather than stitches can come away.
• Beads and sequins. Some plastics dissolve outright in perchloroethylene.

If a set must be cleaned, find a cleaner who will handle it as a single item rather than in a batch, will not press it flat on a shirt press afterwards, and will let you point out what must be protected. Ask what they will do about the orphrey before you leave the garment. Most vestments in parish use need cleaning far less often than people assume — airing, brushing and prompt spot treatment do most of the work.

Pressing principles

Pressing and ironing are different operations. Ironing slides a hot plate across cloth; pressing sets it down, holds, and lifts. On vestments you almost always want to press.

• Work on the reverse wherever the garment allows it.
• Use a pressing cloth — a clean piece of unbleached cotton or a linen tea towel — over anything with a sheen, any dark colour, and every synthetic.
• Moisture does the work, not temperature. Damp cloth at a moderate setting beats dry cloth at a high one.
• Never press over an unremoved stain. Heat sets it, and the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute stain guidance lists hot water and heat among the reliable ways to make a stain permanent.
• For a chasuble, steam it hanging rather than laying it on a board. A hand steamer held 10–15 cm away, moving continuously, relaxes fold lines without flattening the weave. Do not steam metal thread; the moisture accelerates tarnish.

Albs, surplices and cottas have their own order of work, and pleats have rules of their own — see pressing an alb and a pleated surplice without scorching them.

Storage: hanging, flat, and the vestment chest

Hanging

Hang what is structurally sound and can carry its own weight. CCI’s note on hanging storage for costumes is clear that fragile or heavily decorated garments should not hang, and that wire hangers do not support anything.

• Chasubles and copes want a broad padded hanger — 5 cm or more across the shoulder, padded with polyester wadding and covered in washed cotton. A cope also wants its weight taken off the morse and hood; hang it so the shoulders carry the cloth, not the clasp.
• Give each garment its own space. Compressed vestments crease along the compression line and stay creased.
• Cover each one with a washed cotton or unbleached calico dust cover. Not polythene: it traps moisture and, in a damp church, that is how you grow mould inside a bag.
• Stoles hang on their own rail or lie flat. Folded stoles crease across the fold and the crease shows in the sanctuary.

Flat and in a chest

A shallow vestment chest with wide drawers is the better answer for heavy, ornate or aged pieces: it removes the load from the shoulder seam entirely. Pad every fold with a roll of acid-free tissue so the cloth turns a curve rather than a corner. Do not stack more than two or three garments in a drawer, and refold on different lines each time you handle the piece.

Materials that help and materials that harm

• Use unbuffered acid-free tissue, washed cotton, polyester wadding, polypropylene or polyethylene boxes.
• Avoid unsealed wood, ordinary cardboard, tissue from a gift shop, polythene garment bags for long-term storage, rubber bands, pins and adhesive labels.
• Cedar and lavender smell reassuring and repel very little. English Heritage’s clothes moth guidance notes that older mothball formulations are largely banned or not recommended, and that lavender and cedar have limited effect on larvae.

Light, damp and mould in an old building

Light is cumulative and the damage is permanent. Reds and violets fade first; a chasuble left on an open rail beside a south window will show a pale band where the light fell within a couple of years. CCI’s note on textiles and the environment gives 50 lux as the traditional display benchmark and treats ultraviolet as something textiles should ideally receive none of. In practice: store in the dark, close the cupboard, and do not use a display case with a spotlight in it.

Damp is the other churchyard problem. The same guidance puts mould growth at around three months at 70% relative humidity and only a few days above 90%, and notes that metal fittings can go from stable for decades to actively corroding within days above 75%. A stone sacristy on a north wall sits above 70% for months at a time.

• Buy a cheap digital hygrometer and put it in the vestment cupboard, not the nave. Read it weekly for a year before you spend money on anything else.
• Ventilate. Air movement matters as much as the number on the meter. Leave a gap behind the cupboard and off the outside wall.
• A small dehumidifier in the sacristy, emptied reliably, does more good than any amount of tissue paper.
• If you find mould, bag the piece, take it out of the building, and get advice before brushing anything. Dry brushing indoors distributes spores through the whole cupboard.

Moth, and why wool is the target

Clothes moth larvae eat keratin — wool, felt, fur, feather. They ignore cotton, linen and polyester unless those are soiled with food or body oils, which is why the underside of a wool-lined cope collar is a favourite site. Adults do not feed; the damage is entirely larval, and larvae work in the dark and under folds.

1. Monitor. Pheromone traps catch males and tell you whether you have a problem and roughly where. They do not control a population.
2. Vacuum. Under the cupboard, along skirting, in the corners of drawers, and along carpet edges in the vestry. This is the single most effective thing an altar guild can do.
3. Isolate anything suspect in a sealed bag the moment you see grazing, casings or frass.
4. Freeze if you must. English Heritage’s guidance is to bag the item at −18°C for at least two weeks, then leave it 24 hours before opening the bag to avoid condensation. A domestic freezer will do for a stole or an amice. Do not freeze beads, bullion or glued construction without conservator advice — cold makes some adhesives and plastics brittle.

Repair, or retire?

Repair when the cloth around the damage is still strong. A split seam, a lifted orphrey, a lost hook, worn binding on a stole — all straightforward. Reline a chasuble whose face cloth is sound and whose lining has gone; relining is routine work and buys another twenty years.

Retire when the ground fabric itself has failed. If a needle passes through the cloth and the cloth tears rather than holds, no stitch will help: you are sewing into something with no strength left. Shattered silk, split fold lines through the whole width, and general powdery thinning are all end-of-life signals. Two honourable outcomes: keep the piece as it is, boxed flat, as part of the parish’s history; or lift the goldwork and orphreys off a dead ground and mount them on a new one. That second option is skilled work and worth costing properly against what a comparable new set costs. Where a set is genuinely beyond saving and has to be replaced, a made-to-measure replacement can be cut to match the old one’s shape so the parish is not startled by the change.

A seasonal sacristy routine

When	Task
After every use	Hang the chasuble or stole out to air for an hour before it goes back in the cupboard. Check hem and orphrey for wax. Send linens to the wash.
Weekly	Read the hygrometer. Check the candle stands nearest the vesting area. Wash and press purificators, corporals, lavabo towels.
Monthly	Open every cupboard door and drawer for an hour with the sacristy ventilated. Check pheromone traps. Vacuum cupboard floors and corners.
At each change of season	Bring forward the incoming colour, air it 24 hours before first use, and inspect it in daylight. Put the outgoing colour away clean, never with a stain left on it.
Twice yearly (after Easter, before Advent)	Full inventory check. Refold flat-stored pieces on new lines. Renew tissue. Replace tired hanger padding.
Annually	Photograph the collection. Review the repair list and get one thing mended rather than none.

Sacristy inventory checklist

Work through this once, with two people and a camera, and you will have a document worth more than any amount of good intention. Record every piece with: identifying number, description, colour, tradition or set it belongs to, fibre if known, maker and date if known, donor or memorial inscription, condition grade, location, and date last inspected.

Grade condition on four bands so it means something: A — sound, in use. B — usable, minor repair listed. C — not to be used until repaired. D — retired, stored flat, not for use.

Vestments and set pieces

• Chasubles, by colour, with the shape noted (Gothic, semi-Gothic, Roman)
• Dalmatics and tunicles, by colour
• Copes, with morse and hood
• Stoles: priest’s, deacon’s, preaching, funeral, festal — check the pairing with each chasuble
• Maniples and burses, where the set includes them
• Chalice veils and pall covers, by colour
• Humeral veil, benediction veil
• Albs, by size, with cinctures counted separately
• Amices, surplices, cottas, rochets
• Cassocks, including servers’ sizes
• Choir dress: tippets, hoods, preaching scarves — noting that these do not follow the seasonal colour
• Mitres, zucchettos and any episcopal items held for visits

Altar and church textiles

• Altar cloths, fair linens, cerecloths
• Frontals and frontlets, by colour; superfrontals
• Pulpit and lectern falls, by colour
• Aumbry and tabernacle veils
• Banners and processional textiles
• Funeral pall

Linens in circulation

• Corporals — count, and note the fold
• Purificators — count; a parish needs many more than it thinks
• Palls and pall covers
• Lavabo towels
• Credence cloths, communion cloths, baptismal towels

Conditions and equipment

• Hygrometer present and working; readings logged
• Pheromone traps in date
• Padded hangers sufficient for every hanging garment
• Dust covers on every hanging garment
• Acid-free tissue stock
• Named contact for a textile conservator, held with the inventory
• Photographs of every A- and B-grade piece, stored off site
• Insurance schedule matching the inventory

Common questions

Can I put a chasuble in the washing machine?

Only if it is a single-layer unlined polyester one whose label says so. Anything with a lining and an interlining will come out of a wash with the three layers shrunk to different lengths, which shows as puckering along every seam and cannot be pressed out. Brush, air and spot-treat instead.

How often should vestments be dry cleaned?

Far less often than most parishes assume — a well-aired chasuble in ordinary Sunday use may go several years. Every clean costs some fibre. Clean when the garment is visibly soiled or smells, not on a calendar, and never send goldwork or bullion at all.

What is the safest way to store vestments in a damp church?

Off the outside wall, in the dark, under washed cotton covers rather than polythene, with air able to move around them, and with a hygrometer you actually read. A small dehumidifier in the sacristy is usually the highest-value purchase a damp parish can make for its textiles.

Do mothballs protect wool vestments?

Not usefully, and many older formulations are now banned or discouraged. Monitoring with pheromone traps, thorough vacuuming, and isolating anything suspect works better. Freezing at −18°C for two weeks kills all life stages on items that can safely be frozen.

Who should I call when a vestment is too precious to risk?

A qualified textile conservator, not a dry cleaner and not a soft-furnishings workroom. In the UK the Institute of Conservation keeps a register; in the US and Canada the American Institute for Conservation does. Ask specifically whether they have handled metal-thread ecclesiastical work. For repairs short of conservation, such as relining, re-hemming or moving an orphrey onto new cloth, see the repair service on the store’s care page.

What to do this week

Put a hygrometer in the vestment cupboard today; it costs less than a hymn book and will change what you do next. Then open every drawer and cover, look at the shoulders of the hanging garments for the tell-tale point where a thin hanger has been pressing, and replace those hangers first. Photograph what you have. If one garment in the cupboard is graded C, book that repair now rather than waiting for the inventory to be finished. And check the daily wardrobe too — the same principles apply to laundering a clergy shirt and keeping its collar white, which is the garment that actually gets worn every day, and to packing a set for a journey, where a fortnight’s care can be undone by one badly folded suitcase.

Sources

• CCI Notes 13/13 — Commercial Dry Cleaning of Museum Textiles
• CCI Notes 13/5 — Hanging Storage for Costumes
• CCI Notes 13/1 — Textiles and the Environment
• English Heritage — Clothes Moths: Prevention and Control
• USCCB — General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Chapter VI