Expert Long-Term Clothing Storage Tips

The space where you’re storing the clothes should be spick-and- span. “I would clean the area by vacuuming and wiping things down with plain soap and water or Lysol,” Paulocik said. She said she would also avoid using mothballs, which are a pesticide.

“In museums, we monitor the storage areas and place sticky traps to see if any insects are flying around and what species they are,” Paulocik said. And this is something you can also do at home. Put traps at head height, to catch clothing moths, and on the floor at the side of the doorway, to trap carpet beetles. These two critters find textiles particularly alluring.

Sticky traps, such as the ones from archival-storage-company Hollinger, can help you monitor for pests in the area where you’re storing clothing.

Humidity and heat are other enemies of long-term storage, so it’s important to maintain a good temperature wherever you’re storing your clothes. Attics and basements are “really terrible” for long-term storage, Paulocik said, unless they’re climate-controlled. The attic gets too hot and dry, while the basement is too damp and humid — conditions that can accelerate deterioration.

People with no other choice sometimes use dehumidifiers to pull out the moisture in an attic and fans to circulate the air, Paulocik noted. But “if your pieces are important,” she said, “I would store objects in an area of your house that is climate-controlled and then check them periodically. For most people, it’s on the main floor in closets or under beds.”

While heat can be detrimental to garments, in some cases the cold can be a garment’s saving grace.

Paulocik told us that the Royal Ontario Museum had big, walk-in freezers. They were often a garment’s first stop when they entered the collection, because the cold would kill any potential moths and moth larvae.

Paulocik uses the technique for her cashmere sweaters. First, she puts the sweater in a zip-top bag with a little piece of cotton fabric “to absorb any moisture created when the textile is frozen and thawed.” How long you leave it in the freezer depends on several factors, such as the kind of freezer (chest freezers tend to be colder) and how many things are in the freezer. “But usually a week is a good amount of time,” she said. (The technique also works for buggy books!)

Paulocik’s advice was a relief to editor Megan Beauchamp, who recently put her wedding dress in the freezer after a carpet beetle infestation (and a panicked Reddit deep-dive). Yet now the dress has been in there for a month, and she isn’t sure what to do next.

Paulocik said that Megan should now take her wedding dress out of the freezer and inspect it — especially at the seams — for any dead carpet beetles or their frass (excrement). Then pick them off and have the dress cleaned. “Carpet beetles are less of an issue with wedding dresses unless there is a proteinaceous component to the gown,” Paulocik noted. She also warned that there are some materials that shouldn’t be frozen, such as ivory.