That’s why historical garments are true treasures – windows into another world. But there’s a problem: over the years, oxygen, light, and microbes break down old fabrics. To prevent this, these treasures are carefully protected in museums and collections. Visitors, however, can hardly imagine what this clothing once looked like when worn or in motion.

Most preserved garments are extremely sensitive. They need to be stored under special conditions and can under no circumstances be worn. While understandable, an important aspect is lost: the feeling. What does the fabric feel like? How does it flow? How does one move while wearing it? Everything that makes clothing special – the interaction with the human body – gets lost.

Our project, HistoVeaR, targets exactly this issue.

We’re taking these garments out of the display cases and storage boxes of museum archives – digitally. Our goal is to reconstruct historical clothing in 3D based on real historical garments and their material properties, animate them, and bring them to life in virtual reality (VR).