For the last year I've been working on a textile documentation
research project at Museu Paulista, Sao Paulo, Brazil. Its main
objective is to improve museum textiles collection documentation
(especially costumes) by setting patterns and rules to be used by
staff helping us to improve the way we describe objects today.

Our current challenge is to find the best way to describe and
register colors. We are doing some tests with the Pantone Cotton
Scale but we are still not happy with the results since this
procedure alone ended up having too many possible answers. We are
now studying the possibilities to narrow down these results by
controlling the viewer's distance, light source, etc.

Any comments into this issue, examples, indication of museums that
already developed those patterns etc., would be greatly appreciated.

Thais V. Pelligrinelli
Graduate student researcher
Textiles Conservation Department
Museu Paulista/University of Sao Paulo
Brasil