Behind the Scenes
Take a look behind the scenes of The Salisbury Museum fashion collection. Venture into the stores and discover some of the clothes and accessories that have never been on display and learn why fashion collections are so important. Read about the Look Again project and see how the gallery developed.
In the Store
Venture into the stores and discover some of the clothes and accessories that have never been on display
Fashion In Museums
Learn why historic fashion collections are so important.
The Look Again Project
Learn more about the Look Again Project and how the fashion gallery at The Salisbury Museum was created.
The Salisbury Museum Collection
At The Salisbury Museum we are lucky to have a beautiful and intriguing collection of people’s clothes and accessories from the past. Some of the oldest items date back over 300 years but the collection spans the centuries and also includes pieces from more recent decades such as the 1950s.
Over the last few years at the museum we have been working with lots of groups of young people aged between 11 – 25. Many of these groups worked with us using the fashion collection as inspiration for works of art and it became clear that fashion and clothes from the past was a topic that really interested them.
Also underway at the museum was a project involving a dedicated team of heritage volunteers from the Arts Society, working hard to re-catalogue the fashion collection. As this work progressed they started to rediscover many forgotten gems that had become hidden in our store.
The aim of ‘Look Again: Discovering Centuries of Fashion’ was to enable young people to work alongside the heritage volunteers, experts and the museum team to re-look at and re-display the fashion collection so it would appeal to a wider audience.
The museum displays showing the collection were set up over 30 years ago and so were definitely in need of a refresh!
We secured a grant from the Museums Association Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund, part of a series of awards to museums across the UK for projects to help develop collections to achieve social impact and the project got started in March 2018.
Now the gallery is open this website offers you the chance to go behind the scenes of The Salisbury Museum fashion collection, discover some of the forgotten gems discovered by the heritage volunteers and find out more about the Look Again project.
By Katy England, Project Manager