How to Care for and Preserve a Christening Gown

A christening gown is worn once, and then it waits. Tucked into a wardrobe, brought out years later for a younger sibling, or folded away for a child who may one day dress their own baby in it.

How you treat it in the weeks around the ceremony makes the difference between a gown that yellows in a drawer and one that still looks beautiful decades later.

Before the day

Unpack the gown as soon as it arrives and hang it somewhere clean, away from direct sunlight. Try it on your baby early, so there is time to ask about fit if something is not quite right.

If it needs pressing, be gentle, use a low heat, and test on an inside seam first. Delicate fabrics, beading and embroidery do not forgive a hot iron. Steaming from a distance is usually kinder than pressing directly.

On the day

Dress your baby last, after feeding and changing, and keep a muslin over your shoulder when you are holding them.

If something spills, resist the urge to scrub. Blot gently with a clean, slightly damp cloth and leave it at that. Rubbing a mark into delicate fabric, or reaching for a stain remover, usually causes more harm than the mark itself.

Afterwards: clean it sooner rather than later

This is the step families most often delay, and it matters most. Marks you cannot see, such as milk, perspiration and traces of oil from little hands, oxidise over time and emerge as brown or yellow patches years later.

Take the gown to a cleaner experienced with delicate occasion wear or heirloom textiles, and tell them what the piece is and roughly what it may have come into contact with. If you are unsure whether a gown can be cleaned a particular way, ask us before you commit to anything.

Storing it for the years ahead

Once it is clean and completely dry, store it flat rather than on a hanger, so the weight of the fabric does not pull on the shoulders over time.

A few things that help:

• Wrap it in acid free tissue and keep it in an acid free box rather than a plastic bag, so the fabric can breathe
• Choose a cool, dark, dry spot inside the house rather than a garage, shed or roof space, where heat and damp do the most damage
• Keep bonnets, headbands, booties together with the gown, so nothing is lost between generations
• Tuck in a note with your baby's name and the date of the ceremony

Check on it every few years. Refolding along different lines stops permanent creases forming where the fabric has been folded for a long time.

Made to be kept

Our pieces are made to order in Melbourne with this in mind: not an outfit for a single morning, but a keepsake of a sacred beginning.

Explore our baptism and christening collection online, or contact us to arrange a private studio appointment in Hallam, Melbourne.

With love,

Atelier Gabriella

Faith • Family • Tradition